If you woke up tomorrow a UFC champion, what is the first thing you will do???

UFC has become a global phenomenon by embracing values that resonate far beyond the Octagon: excellence, discipline, opportunity, and meritocracy. Proud to launch a new Sports Diplomacy partnership with @UFC and grateful to host @DanaWhite for the signing of our MOU.

Rorion Gracie, who co-founded the UFC in 1993, said he no longer watches the fights because of what he calls 'unnecessary violence.' usatoday.com/story/sports/uf…

"If Donald Trump didn't exist, there's a world where we don't see the UFC in the position it's in today. He gave the UFC an opportunity years and years ago... for no other reason than that he was interested in the passion Dana had for the sport. This goes back much further than politics and all the other stuff that's happening today." Anthony Smith reflects on how the White House UFC event became a reality. Presented by @FREPouch.

Dana White reveals how he knew Conor McGregor would become a superstar before ever seeing him fight "I was in Ireland and I sent out a tweet: 'Hey, who wants to come drink with me at Temple Bar?' All these Irish people were drinking with me, and all anybody talked about was, 'You have to sign Conor McGregor. You have to sign Conor McGregor'" "And I'd never heard of Conor McGregor. For some reason, leaving the bar that night, I was fucking drunk, maybe that's why, but I thought he was a heavyweight" "So then I came back to the United States, and we signed Conor. Conor flew out to Vegas, and I went to dinner with him. I got in my fucking car and called Lorenzo Fertitta. I said, 'Lorenzo, I don't know if this guy can fight, but if he can even throw a fucking punch, this guy's gonna be the biggest fucking superstar ever'"

Daniel Cormier says UFC stars get "monster checks" from the video game while most fighters get $250 "Guys like Justin Gaethje, Ilia Topuria, Pereira, those guys are getting monster checks. I used to get a lot when I was still fighting" "So UFC will give you every year an envelope that says royalties. You get a paper, and it's literally every single thing you sell. If you sell a T-shirt, it tells you how much you get off that T-shirt, everything" "If you sold a boatload of merch, you get 50, 100 pages of stuff you sold from the UFC and on that paper, you get your video game number"

One interesting tidbit here too, Martin says the PFL may expand across combat sports - and not just do MMA.

Dana White: I'm working on a big gaming deal...It's been a tough thing to negotiate and figure out how it all works out, but we are fucking right there.

Thanks to the great partnership with @ufc we’ve seen about 300 agents come through and learn amazing tactics so they can safeguard American lives🇺🇸

Dana White tells the Full Send Podcast that PowerSlap did 2B views in May and gained 2M followers.

Dana White once mocked golf as “a bunch of rich d**ks walking around in stupid clothes.” Maybe he’d like it more if the golfers were all forced to wear the same exact thing. Maybe some Venum golf kits. Ultimately, the closest structural comp to the UFC is the PGA Tour. Same independent contractor model. No union. Same antitrust scrutiny. Completely different outcomes. ⛳ Golfers: ▪️ Equity ▪️ Uncapped sponsors (on off course) ▪️ Transparent pay ▪️ ~26% of revenue 🥊 UFC fighters: ▪️ No equity ▪️ No sponsors in cage/fight week (Venum $4K–$42K) ▪️ Very little transparency on pay ▪️ ~15–18% of revenue ▪️ % of revenue will drop if pay doesn’t scale with the $7.7B Paramount deal ⏳ 30–40 events a year vs ~2 fights per year 📉 Playing careers that can last decades vs ~3 year average UFC tenure 🏆 ~$4.2M guaranteed at The Masters vs undisclosed purses in the UFC. UFC 327 likely saw fighters earn anywhere from $12k - ~$500K. It’s not about just this one weekend. It’s the entire system. One sport plays for majors. The other fights for minimums.

Daniel "DC" Cormier says he made just $80,000 fighting Jon Jones until Dana secretly sent him $1,000,000 check "Back in 2015, I fought Jon Jones for the first time. We had this great build, and I was making $80,000 to show up and $80,000 to win. I lost" "So I left that arena thinking, Man… all that, and I made $80,000. And I made like $80,000 in sponsorships that night, back when we could wear those patches on our shorts. For all that, I'm gonna make $150,000, it's crazy" "Dana calls me two days later. Hey man, y'all killed it. Numbers were out of this world. We're gonna send you $1,000,000. Dude sent me a million-dollar check the next day, just because he said I did a great job" "And then it was Lorenzo Fertitta at the time, the owner. Lorenzo liked his champions making a million dollars. So even if your fight purse was $350,000 and you sold another $300,000 in pay-per-views, Lorenzo would give you an extra $400,000 to make sure you made $1,000,000 every time you stepped in the Octagon"

Daniel "DC" Cormier says he made just $80,000 fighting Jon Jones until Dana secretly sent him $1,000,000 check "Back in 2015, I fought Jon Jones for the first time. We had this great build, and I was making $80,000 to show up and $80,000 to win. I lost" "So I left that arena thinking, Man… all that, and I made $80,000. And I made like $80,000 in sponsorships that night, back when we could wear those patches on our shorts. For all that, I'm gonna make $150,000, it's crazy" "Dana calls me two days later. Hey man, y'all killed it. Numbers were out of this world. We're gonna send you $1,000,000. Dude sent me a million-dollar check the next day, just because he said I did a great job" "And then it was Lorenzo Fertitta at the time, the owner. Lorenzo liked his champions making a million dollars. So even if your fight purse was $350,000 and you sold another $300,000 in pay-per-views, Lorenzo would give you an extra $400,000 to make sure you made $1,000,000 every time you stepped in the Octagon"

Dana White confirms the new UFC ranking system is built off AI. "AI's here, boys and girls."

I spoke to Daniel Marcos about his strange UFC release. 18-1 overall, 5-1 in the UFC, yet somehow didn't get renewed. Marcos said the UFC told him he needed a finish in his last fight, and he did. He put Miles Johns to sleep, making things even more puzzling. mmajunkie.usatoday.com/story…