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Ever since Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta bought the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2000 and installed childhood friend Dana White as its president, he has been waging a war. His objective? To change the fighting styles of the top competitors in the UFC to fit what he deems to be the most exciting. Since White was a boxercise coach with a limited understanding of the Sweet Science, never mind the intricacies of mixed martial arts, that essentially meant crazy toe-to-toe battles with both fighters exchanging heavy blows to the head—essentially, Toughman contests with better technique. Honestly, the second part of that equation is optional.
White has tried many ploys in his quest: blatantly favoring “exciting” fighters with better contracts, higher-profile fights and title shots. As an example, Phil Baroni was once getting paid more than the actual middleweight champion in the early 2000s. White also threatens to release “boring” fighters, as he famously did to Colby Covington prior to his top contender fight against Demian Maia. That prompted Covington to become a pro wrestling-type supervillain. White has also made good on the threat, as he did when he cut Matt Lindland on a flimsy pretext, fearing the Olympic wrestling silver medalist and his stifling style would defeat UFC posterboy Rich Franklin for the middleweight title. In addition, White offers incentives through “Fight of the Night” and “Performance of the Night” bonuses for the type of wild brawls he wants to watch.
White constantly praises and promotes what he considers to be his ideal type of fight, with the most illustrative example being Forrest Griffin-Stephan Bonnar 1. I remember watching it live in 2005, and while it was certainly entertaining, it was also comically sloppy. We all love violence, but we prefer to see it executed with the highest level of skill. Otherwise, we would just watch fights at the local bar between two drunks flailing their arms. White, of course, absolutely loved it and wished every main event could follow suit. Griffin himself would cringe when the fight was brought up in subsequent interviews over the years, noting how much he had improved technically since. He proved as much when Griffin-Bonnar 2 happened a little over a year later. It wasn’t another rousing barroom brawl but instead saw Griffin easily win each round with minimal risk. This should have been an early signal to White, but he’s nothing if not bull-headed.
Here we are in 2022, and while White’s war had an effect on the lower levels of the sport, it has transparently failed at its elite levels. Just look around at the various champions and top contenders. They’re fighting with an increasingly intelligent, cautious and professional style, no matter if it’s more grappling- or striking-based. I’ve written about this before and even noted one prominent new approach I called the Adesanya-Gane style.
I pointed out Leon Edwards as an adherent of that approach, and he just became the undisputed welterweight champion at UFC 278 on Saturday in Salt Lake City. He joins a list that includes Israel Adesanya (one of the UFC’s biggest stars and champions), Ciryl Gane (a top heavyweight contender and likely future champion) and early progenitor Jon Jones (perhaps the greatest fighter of all-time). Not that the man Edwards defeated was that much different. Kamaru Usman also used a brilliant but far from crowd-pleasing approach to win the first 24 minutes of his title defense against Edwards, using a mixture of close-range striking, clinching and the occasional takedown to pull away on the cards. In fact, the crowd was frequently booing—something White hates to hear. In hindsight, perhaps Usman now wishes he had fought in an even more risk-averse style, clinching in the last minute of the fight to give Edwards no chance for exactly the type of Hail Mary strike he ended up landing.
Gane-Francis Ngannou at UFC 270 stands as arguably the most powerful example of White’s failure. Ngannou is the most terrifying knockout artist the sport has ever seen, and his showdown against Gane was set to be a ferocious striking battle. Gane was the sophisticated, supremely skilled tactician gliding around the cage, while Ngannou was the ruthless seek-and-destroy killer determined to hunt down his prey. At least that’s how the marketing went. Instead, the fight that was supposedly guaranteed to end in a vicious knockout went to a close decision, with relatively little damage sustained by either man. Ngannou used his intelligence to wrestle Gane over the final three rounds, defeating him while minimizing risk. Even the greatest knockout artist in UFC history rejected White’s preferred style in favor of fighting smart. White’s face when he wrapped the belt around the Cameroonian’s waist told the tail of a man who had just lost six figures at the blackjack table and washed it down with beer that had gone stale weeks ago.
Why has White come up on the short end of this stick? Because despite all the incentives to fight in an exciting, risky manner, the incentives to avoid doing so are much greater at the highest level. If you fight in an “exciting” manner, you might win an additional $50,000, but you also vastly increase your chances of defeat, which could mean losing hundreds of thousands over one’s career. Consider the fates of consistently exciting brawlers like Derrick Lewis, Paulo Costa, Vicente Luque or even the superbly talented Justin Gaethje. All of them failed to become undisputed champions, mostly beaten by opponents who were fighting smarter or fellow risky brawlers whose blows landed first or landed harder. Never mind how much more punishment all of these contenders have endured against smart champions like Edwards, Usman or Israel Adesanya. Of course, White isn’t going to cut any of these guys. They’re way too good at what they do and frequently produce exciting finishes when opponents are far below their level and an opportunity arises. Remember, after Usman beat Jorge Masvidal by risk-free means the first time, he fought with a more “exciting” style in the rematch and recorded a brilliant knockout. Why? Because Usman realized Masvidal posed exactly zero risk. However, against a far better, more dangerous opponent like Edwards, he fought smart, and when he got a little too comfortable near the end, he paid for it.
Will White ever wave the white flag of defeat? When it comes to the majority of the roster, likely not. However, at this point, even he has to realize that his war has been lost at the highest levels of the sport.