Dana White won’t concede to criticism.
2022 started controversially for longtime Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) color commentator Joe Rogan. Early into the year, a video surfaced, compiling clips from several old episodes of Rogan’s old Joe Rogan Experience podcasts, showing him saying the n-word.
The video emerged before UFC 271 in Houston, Tex., and prompted angry reactions that called for his removal from commentary. Ultimately, Rogan did not work the domestic pay-per-view event, as he usually does, but White stated it had nothing to do with the incident. White recently reflected on that time, revealing that he told Rogan over the phone he was willing to resign from his position in UFC before taking action against his friend and employee of 20-plus years.
“Anybody who is with me, has been with me, knows,” White told Lex Fridman. “When you’re with me, you’re with me. It’s a two-way street. It’s not a one-way street. I’m not one of these guys that is gonna roll over.
“It’s like going through COVID. I wasn’t laying [off] any of these people,” he continued. “Some of these people have been with me for 20 years. We’re gonna lay ‘em off? Uh uh. This motherf—ker will burn, burn before I would do that to my people. It’s just never — none of that type of stuff is ever going to happen while I’m here. I can’t say what’s gonna happen when I leave, but when I’m here, the people who are with me and have been with me they know exactly what’s up, and Joe knows what’s up. It’s a two-way street. Joe Rogan has been very loyal to me, and I am very loyal to Joe Rogan.”
As White mentioned, he notoriously refused to stop business for an extended period throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which received plenty of backlash in its own right. It’s been all systems go since then.