David Feldman recently recalled Dana White once dismissing the idea of BKFC and the concept of bare-knuckle boxing. The BKFC frontman detailed how White's words drove him to pursue his goal and motivated him to bring the sport into the mainstream.
In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Feldman was asked about his past interactions with White and if the two shared some common ground in the context of dealing with combat sports being an outlier in the sporting world for an extended period of time. He admitted that he spoke to the UFC CEO about it and said:
"I met him in his office. We talked a little bit... He did say, like, 'That's what people like us need. We need people like that to light a fire under their a**.'... I was at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City a long time ago. I jumped over the barricade, and I just tapped him on the shoulder, and I was like, 'Yo, I want to talk to you about this bare-knuckle thing I'm doing. He goes, 'Yeah, I heard of it. Get out of here, you'll never get it right. You'll never get it sanctioned.' And I was like, 'Isn't that what they said to you? I'll see you at the top."
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When Mike Perry claims Dana White made "lowball" offer to buy David Feldman's BKFC
It appears Dana White once wanted to purchase the BKFC promotion and even made a move to make it happen. Last year, former UFC star Mike Perry claimed that he heard about White's buyout attempt and why it was rejected by David Feldman.
During an episode of the Overdogs Podcast, Perry recalled meeting someone who told him about the White-BKFC deal and said:
"You want to know what I heard about the meeting with Feldman and Dana? I didn't hear this from a most reliable source, but there was a drunk guy, and he said he was talking to somebody credible, and he said something about there was an offer being made to purchase BKFC. I think it was, you know, a lowball offer, $200 million for the BKFC, and Feldman said no."
Check out Mike Perry's comments below (37:42):