It was another successful night at the UFC Apex with three hopefuls—heavyweight Thomas Petersen, lightweight Bolaji Oki and welterweight Carlos Prates—doing enough to impress the boss and become the newest fighters in the UFC. After announcing and congratulating those men, UFC president Dana White made his way to the media room to take questions from reporters and mused about how far the Dana White’s Contender Series franchise had evolved over seven seasons.
“The war room that we have at the office where we make all the fights…on the wall, there’s different stickers that go beside the fighters’ names so that we know where they came from. Red is The Ultimate Fighter. Blue is the Contender series. Yellow is Lookin’ For A Fight. And if you look at the whole wall, it’s all blue. I mean, the whole wall is blue. This show has created so much talent from top 15, ten, five, to a couple world champions now. This show has become not just something that we love to do every Tuesday night, but it’s become a very vital part to the organization and to matchmaking.”
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Speaking of champions that had come from DWCS, the media still had plenty of questions about the star power of Sean O’Malley, the newest bantamweight title-holder, hot off his KO of Aljamain Sterling in Boston two weeks prior.
“When he fought here, he had the biggest numbers on the Contender Series the first however many seasons; it was millions. He had millions of views. So we knew right away. We started to move him that way. The gate in Boston was the biggest gate ever in the history of the Boston Garden that wasn’t the Celtics finals. And it was it was the biggest bantamweight championship of all time pay per view was. He’s going to make a lot of f******g money. That’s a fact.”
The media had plenty of other topics on his mind, and White patiently made his way through them.
On The Attempted Break-In At His Maine Vacation Home:
“My sister and her husband and some of his friends are up there visiting right now and know the guy came up and tried to kick the door in a couple of times and then noticed the camera was there, tried to rip it off and rang the doorbell, freaked out and ran away. My guy who handles my house up there called me and said that something’s going on up there. So I answer the phone. So somebody just tried to kick your door in and rob your house or do whatever. We got video footage and the police are going to post it in the morning. I said, ‘Yeah, f*** that. Send that to me right now. That dude woke up and was famous the next morning. And you know, the sheriff up there had him within a few hours….Listen, whether you’re in Vegas or anywhere else, don’t f*** around my house.”
On The Retirement Of The Korean Zombie Last Week:
“He’s very special man… And he’s been so fun to watch. And he’s such a good human being, such a good person. I’m happy for him and his wife and I wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.”
On Opening UFC Performance Institutes Around The World:
“We’re opening the pie in Mexico. And my vision while I am here, I don’t know if this will continue when I leave. It probably will not. But my vision is I want to open as many of these pieces as possible. It’s reinvesting back in the sport… We got one in China. We got one in Vegas. We’ll have one in the Middle East. And I want one in Africa. These are these are the spots that I’m looking at right now. If you look throughout the history of fighting, you go to places where living is hard and people have hard times and people come up with rough upbringings. That’s where you find some of the baddest people in the world.”
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In the wide-ranging conversation he also touched on what’s next for Max Holloway, the fake Conor McGregor dates floating around the internet, what it would take to get the UFC to Hawaii, having fights booked through March, a possible return to Miami and much, much more.
You can watch the entire clip right here:
