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A no-weddings rule
Dana White lived in Boston and kept a blanket policy through his twenties: he did not go to anybody's wedding. Everyone he knew was getting married as they headed toward thirty, and each wedding meant a flight and a chunk of time out of his life.
Then Adam Corrigan, a friend from high school, got married. Corrigan had been the rich kid with a car in high school. Every day he drove over and picked up a friend who had none, which meant waking up forty-five minutes to an hour earlier than he otherwise would have. After all that, he was not going to miss Corrigan's wedding.
Meeting the Fertittas
At the wedding he ran into Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, whom he had not seen in ten years or more. Lorenzo had just joined the Nevada Athletic Commission and had heard about the boxing gym where he trained. He wanted to come in and train with him. Lorenzo showed up on Monday, and the two of them have been together ever since, with Frank alongside.
Some time later, he and the Fertittas bought the UFC for $2 million.
Why was the UFC so cheap to buy?
By the late 1990s the UFC had been banned in many states, and major cable providers had dropped its pay-per-view events. Senator John McCain campaigned against it, comparing it to cockfighting. Its previous owner sold it in 2001 to Zuffa, the company the Fertittas formed for the purchase. Nevada sanctioned the sport that same year under a set of unified rules first drafted in 2000.
How do state athletic commissions regulate fights?
State athletic commissions license fighters, referees, and promoters, approve matches, and require medical checks before bouts. The United States has no single national regulator for combat sports, so each state sets its own rules. Federal laws passed in 1996 and 2000 set baseline protections for boxers, but enforcement still falls to the states.
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