The UFC Story, Part 3: Dana White and Zuffa take over

Zuffa purchased the UFC from SEG

Dana White began boxing at the age of 17. After running into trouble with the Boston mob, he moved to Las Vegas and began working out of various boxing gyms. He quickly realised he would never make it as a pro boxer and started managing boxers as a new career path.

He soon transitioned into managing MMA fighters, most notably UFC Hall of Famers Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell.

While working as a manager for Ortiz and Liddell, Dana, through his interactions and negotiations with the UFC, learned that their parent company SEG was on the verge of bankruptcy and looking for a buyer to take the promotion off their hands.

He contacted his childhood friend Lorenzo Fertitta, the owner of Station Casinos, the fourth largest casino company in America and the former commissioner of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Dana convinced Lorenzo and his brother Frank to buy the UFC and rebuild it in a new image. Within a month, the Fertitta’s bought the promotion and named Dana White the new president of the UFC. The Fertitta’s created a new company to become the parent body of the UFC. Paying homage to their ancestry, the Fertitta’s named the company ‘Zuffa’ which means fight in Italian.

Zuffa brought with it greater advertising, corporate sponsorships and wider releases of UFC events. Slowly but surely, the popularity of the promotion began to grow. The UFC even secured its first ever television deal with Fox Sports Net. UFC 40 was a tent pole event.

They sold out the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas and drew pay per view buys thrice as large as any previous Zuffa event. The main event was for the Light heavyweight championship bout between champion Tito Ortiz and challenger Ken Shamrock.

UFC 40 garnered interest from mainstream outlets like ESPN, something no MMA event had ever done up to that point.

The success of UFC 40 gave the top brass at Zuffa the indication that MMA could be a big mainstream sport. Many years after UFC 40, referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy said that he felt UFC 40 was the turning point in whether or not MMA would survive in America.

Tito Ortiz was the main event at the tent pole UFC 40 event

Despite the success of UFC 40 however, Zuffa was still suffering from heavy losses and financial deficits. Most other UFC events garnered audiences in the range of 40,000 leaving the company in distress.

By 2004, Zuffa had $34 million of losses since they purchased the UFC from SEG. They were on their last leg. The Fertitta’s had one last chunk of cash they could throw into the sport before cutting their losses and Dana White knew he would need to pull a rabbit out of a hat to save the promotion and the sport from near-certain extinction.

With the UFC on its last leg, White played his card, The Ultimate Fighter.