Blood Money

It's a quick, savage shot to the jaw that stirs the crowd—a universal signal of pain and victory and defeat all at the same time. As middleweight champion Rich Franklin lands the brutal punch against Nate Quarry's face, the fans go from sitting to standing, from loud to rabid. The punch shoots them full of adrenaline. The punch changes everything.

Forget boxing. It's gotten stale, crippled by a lack of stars and the fact that it's often painfully boring. This is different. This is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, one of the biggest phenomena in sports since NASCAR, and an outfit that can trace the unlikely lineage of its success to a neighborhood gym in Boston. Dana White used to teach kids how to box in Southie. Now, he's the one responsible for all this, for the ferocious, fascinating scene. Here, men fight inside a menacing octagonal cage with thin gloves that barely cover their knuckles—men with cauliflower ears and black eyes, mangled noses and scars so deep they'd make the best plastic surgeons recoil. Kicking, punching, and elbowing is legal, in stark contrast to the slower, more controlled choreography of boxing. Here, the battles are fast affairs busy with vicious blows and unforgiving submission holds. People get choked until they quit or pass out. Arms can be broken. Tonight, in Nate Quarry's case, blood is spilled. And the fans love it. It's the closest approximation of sanctioned street fighting, the perfect spectacle to captivate America's drooling ADHD masses.

Dana White is the guy making them slobber. He's Bob Arum with more charm, Don King with less hair (and fewer legal woes), a man who profits from the simple truth we all learned in grade school: When a fight breaks out in the schoolyard, it always draws a crowd.

"The UFC addresses a primal chord in all of us," says Bernard Fernandez, longtime boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. "I bet right now, if you put Steven Seagal versus Jean-Claude Van Damme on pay-per-view for $49.95, thousands would buy it if it was for real. And what's the UFC doing? It has the ability to turn guys into real-life Seagals and Van Dammes."

Because of White, nearly 12,000 people are crammed into the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas tonight, some paying as much as $400 a ticket. Those at home dropped $34.95 to watch. Five years ago, it's unlikely this would have happened. Five years ago, before White came along, the UFC was all but dead—it wasn't sanctioned by the Nevada Athletic Commission, it wasn't on pay-per-view, and its fans were evaporating. It was all but dead, that is, until White and his associates resuscitated it when no one else was even willing to pay for the funeral.

At 36, White could pass for a fighter himself—stocky build, square shoulders, and deep, dark eyes that can fix you with a hard stare. His head is shaved, too, making him look a little like a bowling ball with feet—compact and powerful. He and his partners, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, who own the no-frills Palace Station Casino off the Vegas Strip, took over the UFC five years ago. White, who owns 10 percent while the Fertittas control the rest, was made the frontman. Officially, he is the president. Unofficially, his title is closer to "identity," the man who converted the UFC from its human cockfighting days, when head-butting and biting were allowed—a blood sport so cruel Congress wanted it banned—to a legitimate athletic competition sanctioned by reputable fight commissions.

There are still critics—just fewer of them now. Because of White's maneuvering, the UFC has been heralded by mainstream publications including Time, Sports Illustrated, and the Los Angeles Times, and the fights are regularly attended by stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Shaq. Tonight, Yankees slugger Jason Giambi is here. Better yet: So is Lee Majors. This organization—a slick production that frames the fighting and blood as pro wrestling–style entertainment, only real—is different in nearly every way from what it used to represent. Today, the UFC and Dana White enjoy the boom that came after they narrowly avoided the bust.

"[White's] a really smart guy," says Joe Rogan, best known for hosting Fear Factor, but who also moonlights as the UFC's color commentator. "He's very crafty, very calculated. He's really done a fantastic job pushing the sport into the limelight.

"Look, people love basketball. I understand that. Root for your team. But to me it's all bullshit. All the artificial significance that we attach—that's the only thing that makes it popular. To me, it's boring as fuck. I don't care if a guy puts a ball in a hoop. It doesn't mean anything. But there's not a time when someone punches someone in the face that everyone doesn't go, 'Fuck, that guy just got punched in the face.' When someone punches someone in the face, it always means something. Always."

When Franklin connects, Quarry goes limp and topples straight back—as though he has suddenly decided to make a snow angel. As Quarry falls down, the crowd stands up. The din grows so thick, it's almost uncomfortable.

It's clear Rogan is right. That punch does mean something. It means Franklin wins, but the UFC wins bigger.

WE'RE BOOMING DOWN Interstate 15 in Las Vegas, pushing north in Dana White's pimp black Bentley coupe, awash in that wonderfully intoxicating new-car smell. As he switches lanes and shoots past plodding Hondas and run-down pickups, White explains how he's involved in everything from fine-tuning the UFC's television productions to approving commercials to helping pick fight matchups. He's a micromanager and he knows it, but he isn't apologizing. "I'm the boss of bosses," he says. Which is great, but I'm not really listening. His ride has rendered me useless (or more useless than normal). It's a fantastic amalgam of dark tinted windows, rich caramel leather seats, and an in-dash computer/navigation system that looks as if it could launch nuclear weapons. There are British secret agents who never had a car this cool.

It's the day before the fight, and White has errands to run. We are headed first to the bank, then to see his partners before, if we're lucky, making it back to the MGM Grand in time for him to preside over the weigh-ins at Studio 54. As we rush from spot to spot, it becomes obvious that White is a long way from who he was in Boston—a point crystallized by his extensive responsibilities, but also by the car we're sitting in and the $64,000 in cash he pulls out of the bank and asks me to hold while he drives. He says the bulk of it is for his partners, and the rest is "walking-around money." I briefly consider jumping from the moving vehicle and making a dash for Ol' Mexico, but I fear he'd bash me into a bloody mess and leave me in the desert. (He won't say how much he earns, but he's clearly doing well, and so is the UFC, which regularly produces gates in excess of $2 million.)

White had lots of jobs before this one, none of them nearly as cush. In Boston, at 17, he worked as a bouncer at the Black Rose. It wasn't for him. Neither was his stint as a doorman at the Boston Harbor Hotel, or as a student at UMass Boston. (He never graduated).

"The jobs I had in Boston made me realize that this is what I wanted to do. I worked out in Wakefield at a company called E. J. Paving. I moved cement mix around. That was the hardest fucking job I've ever had." White talks exactly the way you'd expect of a hard-nosed guy from Southie who spends his time with people paid to attack each other. His words are unvarnished and forceful, and he's liberal with his cursing. "I used to say, 'I don't give a fuck what I do for the rest of my life, nothing will ever be as hard as this. Ever.' That was the best thing that ever happened to me."

While he was shuffling from gig to gig, trying to find direction, White started boxing. He learned how to throw punches, how to make them powerful, but mostly he learned the business side, how to promote fights and manage fighters, how to make a living off organized violence. Along with his friend and instructor Peter Welch (who now trains UFC fighters), White started a youth boxing program at the McDonough Gym in Southie. After that, he knew he'd make the fight game his profession or go broke trying.

At 26, White left New England's cruel winters for the equally merciless dry Vegas heat. He started a gym out there. Before long, he owned three, which is how he started managing current UFC fighters Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz (who both used to work out at his gyms). Soon after, he and the Fertittas were talking about buying the UFC. And why not? All the pieces were in place. White had friends with money, and backers who thought he'd be perfect to refurbish the brand.

"All of this is Dana—he spearheaded the transformation," says Anthony Giordano, the UFC's television director, who was with the company long before White took over. "Plus, the way he handles people, you can't teach that. He makes fans feel like they have some ownership, like we couldn't do it without them."

That's no small point. When White and I finally get back to Studio 54 for the weigh-ins, we're confronted by a dense, motley pack of UFC devotees. There are curvaceous women, meatheads with too-big muscles wearing too-small shirts, and dads accompanied by awestruck kids. Navigating the crowd with White is next to impossible. Every few feet, they paw at him. This happens a lot. Earlier, when we were in the casino, a middle-aged woman got up from her slot machine and leapt in our direction. With a half-smoked Pall Mall dangling between her yellowed teeth, she asked White to autograph a spot on the back of her T-shirt, near her ass—a delicate process he accomplished with diplomacy. He's not dull. White is uncommonly friendly when talking to the (sometimes chemically imbalanced) masses, always mindful that being a good ambassador adds to the UFC's fan base. It's a big part of why the UFC has become so hot—the fact that White is out front. He's good at it. He's unnervingly polite even though some fans lack decorum and beg for his attention like pouting children. After five minutes, I'm ready to snap. That he doesn't punch one of them or hurry things along so the weigh-ins can start is remarkable. And the fans adore him for it.

"Fuck Don King," someone shouts happily.

THE DETRACTORS called it a freak show. That was the label easily (and accurately) applied when the UFC started in the early '90s, back when it billed itself as a no-holds-barred circus while trying to survive in remote outposts like Buffalo and Birmingham.

When White took control, it looked as though he'd get his ass kicked. It was a disastrous organization with an image problem and little cash. The previous owner had stripped it down and sold off most of the intellectual property— moneymakers like merchandising rights, video games, DVDs, and video archives.

"I spent my first three years yelling 'fuck you' over the phone and telling people I was going to sue them," White says. "The first three years were fucking horrible."

Further complicating matters was Arizona Senator John McCain, who sent letters to the governors of all 50 states imploring them to forever ban the sport. That's the same Senator McCain who's cool enough to appear on The Daily Show and powerful enough to run for president—a man not easily beaten. But, in a strange twist, McCain's opposition ultimately ushered the UFC to success.

"If it wasn't for Senator McCain, we wouldn't be here right now," White contends. "We have to be regulated. For this to be a real sport, we have to have rules. Had he not spoken out and forced this direction, we wouldn't be here. No one would have accepted us."

White likes to say the UFC ran toward regulation, not away from it. It's a company line—a favorite talking point that's become a lazy in-house cliché. Yet it worked. The UFC got McCain off its back by complying with the stipulations put forth by the Nevada Athletic Commission—fight doctors, weight classes, rules (like no more head-butting or biting), judges, and a scoring system similar to boxing's. Suddenly, the UFC was sanctioned to promote fights. It was legal. (Today, 20 states allow mixed-martial-arts events, including New Jersey and California. Massachusetts doesn't have any clear rules for or against it.)

"They were trying to make themselves more palatable to Congress," says Fernandez, the boxing writers association president. "A movie is dead in the water with an NC-17 rating. They have to make adjustments to get an R rating and get it into the multiplex. Basically, the UFC removed itself from the NC-17 rating—maybe not because it wanted to, but because it had to in order to thrive."

With regulation came legitimacy, which helped White accomplish exactly what Fernandez is talking about: playing to wider audiences.

"We wanted to get on TV," White recalls. "We weren't even on pay-per-view when we bought it. We were banned on that—banned on something you have to pay to see."

Regulation and pay-per-view led to other moves, big and small, all designed to attract fans. The UFC's production elements improved dramatically. There were now lights and music and flashy entrances, much like the WWE's. It added fighter interviews before each bout to establish rooting interests—either for or against, just so long as fans weren't indifferent—and build the competitors into personalities. And, perhaps most importantly, ring-card girls in booty shorts were hired.

Still, White and the UFC needed something to put the organization over the top, to help it expand from a popular fringe sport, from the combat equivalent of the Arena Football League, into a monster of national appeal. They needed something that would explain the product in terms easily understood by the vapid majority. They needed a reality show. The Ultimate Fighter was created and broadcast on Spike TV. There have been two seasons, with a third on the way. It's a program that puts the Real World template—people in a house living uncomfortably—to more-authentic use by letting the inhabitants fight instead of faking conflict. White is the show's one constant, urging the contestants at various intervals to try harder to beat the shit out of each other. Which they do. Last man standing wins a UFC contract.

It's genius (such as it is), exactly the vehicle the UFC needed to ferry itself, and its fighters, to prominence. Because, glossy as the UFC has become, the concept isn't really new. For as long as there have been people, there have been people willing to fight and plenty of others willing to watch. The key difference now is that our attention spans have grown shorter and our processing capacities weaker. We're able to sympathize with Katrina survivors, but only until Laguna Beach comes on. It's who we are. All White did was exploit it. If Bush were smart, he'd do the same—hire someone to recast the Iraq war as a new kind of Survivor—then sit back and watch his approval (and Nielsen) ratings skyrocket.

"The interesting thing about the reality show is that it offers the opportunity for a variety of viewers to tune in," says Brian J. Diamond, Spike's vice president of sports and specials. When the WWE left Spike for cable rival USA, it could have been a disaster for the "television network for men." Instead, Spike filled the void by increasing its UFC programming. "If you're a fan of the UFC, it's like you hit the jackpot," Diamond says. "If you're not, it's great drama and great entertainment that keeps you watching. It's pulled people into the sport and made new fans."

The show made everyone celebrities—the company, the fighters, and especially White. Hundreds of hopefuls turned out in Newton, of all places, for The Ultimate Fighter 3 auditions, all of them desperate to become famous by pounding someone stupid. White was on hand to pluck the most promising, to select from a group of fighters whose members differed in both ability and appearance: Tats. Shaved heads. Handlebar mustaches and long hair. Six-packs, and huge biceps with bulging veins. Black. White. Thick. Thin. You name the build, it was there. One guy could have passed for a scale model of Evan Marriott from that insipid Fox show; another had a lightning bolt shaved into the top of his head—appropriate, since that's how he hit: hard and sudden.

The area's major media outlets were in attendance, too—Channel 7, Channel 38, WAAF, WBCN, the Globe, and the Herald. That kind of mainstream interest has made the UFC more appealing to advertisers who five years earlier wouldn't have associated with it if you put them in a headlock. Now Gillette, the U.S. Army, and Burger King are all proud sponsors. Accordingly, White and the UFC are hyperselective these days about which affiliations are publicly acknowledged.

"We've changed something," White tells his fighters in a private meeting before the MGM Grand event. "[If you win the fight] you can't talk about your [individual] sponsors for 45 minutes. You can't get up there and thank 'Joe's Tire Barn.' The fans don't want to hear that shit. We're at a whole 'nother level now."

NO ONE HAS ever died in a UFC fight. That's something the UFC is proud of, even though plenty of people worry it's inevitable. The critics love to play on that fear. White and some fighters appeared on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, during which the host and a doctor he'd invited set about terrorizing the audience with hypothetical death scenarios.

"You know what I hate about the fucking media, man?" White asks, ramping up. "You don't have to be a fight fan. Either you are or you aren't. But at least do your homework. If you listened to the 'Douche-Bag Show,' he starts talking about—biting, kicking, eye-scratching, anything goes! Where the fuck have you been, dude? Living under a rock? Where have you been for the last five years?

"Can they really bite and punch in the nuts and all the goofy stuff he was saying? No. That's not true. He really loses credibility in the end. But it sucks that a few more uneducated people hear that about the sport that way. It's like a fucking witch hunt."

Maybe. But the potential for brutality—real or perceived—is part of the appeal. The attraction is rooted in the fact that the sport has always been a freak show. It's just a slightly safer, more polished freak show now because of White and the direction he's taken it.

Back in Vegas, at the MGM Grand, Rich Franklin has retained his middleweight belt by delivering that fierce knockout. He's talking into a microphone now, addressing the crowd, inviting them to enjoy the victory with him. He's playing to them, really, and they're all too happy to go along. The arena is still packed, still cheering Franklin well after the fight has ended. "I hope you guys are entertained," he says to a crowd so loud, I can barely hear him.