Dana White is wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, but is still as busy as ever as the CEO of the UFC. Even so, White insists in a new interview that he has no intention of ever retiring from the business.
“Everybody changes when you make a lot of money,” White said on Tucker Carlson’s podcast. “No matter what walk of life you’re in, once you get to a certain level of success, you have to be a certain type of person to stay hungry and get out and fight every day. When we sold in 2016, 99 percent of the people said that I was going to retire and walk away. I’m not wired like that.
“I’m still out building new brands and doing sh*t that I don’t need to be doing. But I do it because I love it. You know how many people in a sale like mine in 2016, you never see that guy again? They’re done.
“I will never retire. Ever. I will keep dogging this out until the day I drop dead. I love it, 100 percent. Hopefully [I’ll be 80 years old ringside].”
And in a surprising turn of events, to illustrate his point, White actually handed out rare praise to one of his sworn enemies, boxing promoter Bob Arum.
“I hate him, he’s an asshole, but Bob Arum, the boxing promoter, he’s 94 years old. I hate him. This guy’s the biggest douchebag of all time but I’m at the [Las Vegas] Aces WNBA game — Bob Arum is 94 years old, it’s 9 o’clock at night and he’s sitting over there courtside. I’m like holy shit Bob Arum is here, this is crazy, this guy’s 94 years old.
“He’s sitting over there, it’s 8:30, I shit you not, two days later I’m watching a fight, Bob Arum is in Saudi Arabia ringside at a boxing event. Two days later, he’s in London at a press conference. He’s 94 years old.”
“I hate him but you got to respect it right? How can you not respect that?”
