Dana White quit his bellhop job and years later reconnected with high school friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta at a wedding. As a fighter agent, White pushed the UFC owner for higher fighter pay, learned the promotion was broke, and pitched the Fertittas on buying it instead.
Dana White. He ends up as a bellhop. He describes the day that he quit, and he's like, I was just sitting there, am I just gonna do this shit forever? And he's like, I had the realization that every day that I do this, that's another day that I'm not doing the thing I want. I thought he was friends with the Fertittas. They only knew of each other in high school, but they weren't friends. So years later, they're at a wedding and they meet up, and they're like, dude, I haven't talked to you in so long. Yeah, I teach this like boxer size class, I'm doing jiu-jitsu. You know what, I'm doing good in business, but like, I'm not really doing anything fitness-wise. I want to train jiu-jitsu. All right, sure, I've heard that a million times. Nobody actually shows up. Lorenzo, the next morning, is there ready to do jiu-jitsu. That's how the Fertitta started to fall in love with fighting or MMA. While he's doing that, he becomes an agent. But the UFC is so small back then, even though these guys are the big stars. In doing that, he's negotiating a contract with the owner of the UFC. He's like, you got to pay Tito more. Look at how much money this guy's bringing in. He's the face of this. And the guy's like, look, Dana, there's no money. You're not wrong, but I have nothing to give. And Dana's like, my main business is going to go down the drain. The owner can't pay my fighters. This is over. But he turned that disadvantage to an advantage. That's when he approached the Fertittas to be like, hey, let's buy this
