What is the real motive behind Dana's White-washing of UFC & MMA history?

Three driving motives behind Endeavor's masterful marketing to the masses.

Gobsmacked by the non-stop BS Dana White is spewing on his latest media tour about how Power Slap is ‘dominating’ social media?

Imagine how all of us who have been around the MMA industry for decades feel about the UFC pushing The Zuffa Myth for a generation.

That’s the myth that Dana White “cleaned up” the sport, invented weight classes, and made the sport mainstream and palatable for the masses.

At least I understand why Endeavor is having Dana do such a hard sell for Power Slap. All it takes is one government contract or major sponsor to bite and Ari Emanuel’s “flywheel” of doom will take care of the rest.

I do admit that every time I see Dana in his Endeavor-flavored closed media curated loop spitting outrageous marketing claims about Power Slap, it reminds me very much of the mythology UFC utilized to build their $4 billion empire under Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta.

At least back then there was an underlying business purpose in trying to market a newer fight sport into a television broadcast “suitable” for network television.

But now that Ari Emanuel owns UFC and has managed to take a $4 billion purchase and turn it into a multi-billion publicly-traded Wall St. juggernaut as TKO, what is the point of regurgitating The Zuffa Myth in 2024?

That was the first thought that came to mind when I saw Roku release a video trailer for an upcoming UFC docu-series that will be available for viewing consumption by the time you read this article.

The video trailer demonstrated both the incredible strength of Endeavor’s production operations to produce a compelling piece of video and also demonstrated a sugar-coated level of substantive packaging for mass consumption.

The chef’s kiss was having Laura Sanko selling the Zuffa Myth rat poison.

There are no coincidences or conspiracies in the land of Ari Emanuel. Everything has a purpose. Political, business, and cultural.

With Dana White’s supposed reduction in power for day-to-day operations, Endeavor’s media machine has been non-stop in portraying Dana as the modern day Gladiator “ready for war.”

Whether it’s flaming the media, coming back from the supposed brink of death to reclaim the cover of Health & Fitness, or portraying Dana as the ultimate American rags-to-riches story, Ari Emanuel has made certain to build a powerful media narrative that is full of hype and completely lacking in credibility.

You can either spend your time whining about the hypocrisy of it all like some third-rate cable news host… or you could be like us and start analyzing the why behind the strategy.

As Nate Wilcox recently opined on The MMA Draw, there is an incredibly powerful entertainment and political axis being forged between Ari Emanuel, Dana White, and former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Emanuel is the master behind the American icons. He is one of, if not, the most powerful political forces in today’s American political scene.

When we say that Ari Emanuel’s UFC is combat capitalism with Chinese characteristics, pay attention. We at The MMA Draw remains ahead of the curve on the political machinations behind what UFC markets to you as both a customer and taxpayer.

For over a year, we sounded the alarm on Endeavor morphing the UFC & WWE business models into that of a government contractor. For that acknowledgement of reality, we got unlimited snickering from the peanut gallery.

Today? Everyone acknowledges TKO as… a blossoming government contractor. Wall Street interests like Radnor Capital are hearing directly from TKO executives about the importance of government contracts.

How does all of this tie into the infamous Zuffa Myth? It’s all about regulatory capture. You capture the interest of government agencies and suddenly your interests become their interests.

Liability protection.

Political cronyism.

First-Mover status to gain political favor over the rest of the competition. And now as we’ve seen over the last decade, political disinterest when it comes to amending The Ali Act or having Federal action in Washington DC for antitrust investigation.

Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta represented level one when it came to profiting off The Zuffa Myth.

Ari Emanuel has now taken that mythological framework and is using a Boeing-style blue print to have taxpayers pay him for fight shows. He’s on a whole different level now.

Keeping up the mythology of Dana White as the God of MMA has its corporate benefits. Beneath the surface, there are three interesting — and bizarrely intriguing — motives as to why The Zuffa Myth remains such an important selling point in UFC’s underlying business model.

Once you understand the why behind the strategy, it will change the way you look at the sport as a whole.