It’s Dana White, in his own fighting words.
The UFC president, who leads the company’s fifth stop in Montreal this Saturday for UFC 154, sat down recently in Las Vegas with Postmedia, discussing everything from running a billion-dollar company to religion to his definition of courage.
The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix's Dave Deibert asked. These are White’s answers.
* “You know, it’s weird because it feels like a very long time but yet it went really fast. My life goes by, like, (expletive) weeks go by in days. Months go by in weeks.”
* “F*** is my favourite word, period.”
* “I had a paving job when I was in Boston — we used to pave roads and things like that — and then the bellman job that everybody knows. When I worked at that paving place, I worked for these (expletive) Italian maniacs, and it was all a bunch of young guys. We competed every day. We used to (expletive) run wheelbarrows and see who could do the most wheelbarrow loads, and who was the best guy, and who had the fastest crew and all that (expletive). The same thing when we were bellmen. Who took down what (expletive) bags, who did this, who did that.”
* “There’s a big misconception about Vegas. I’ve lived on the east coast. I’ve lived on the west coast. I’ve lived in places like (expletive) Levant, Maine. I’ve lived in Boston, Mass. I’ve lived in Las Vegas. If you’re not a good parent, you can (expletive) your kids up anywhere.”
* “Clint Eastwood is the one guy, the only guy, I’d give a (expletive) that I’d really like to meet, sit down, talk to for 30 minutes. I’d better hurry up if that’s going to happen. I don’t know how much longer Clint’s going to be around.”
* “Listen, name it and I’ve (expletive) spoke there and done it. When we first were getting licensed in the state of Nevada, one of the commissioners called me up and asked me a question. I literally, man, I’m telling you, I (expletive) froze. Froze. I froze to the point they had to get a (expletive) dolly up there (laughs), wheel me out and take me out of there. Somebody came and got me, sat me down next to Lorenzo, and he goes, ‘What the (expletive) was that?’ I go, ‘I have no idea, dude.’ ”
* “Working out these days makes me feel old.”
* “A friend is the guy that no matter what you did, no matter what’s going on in your life, no matter what you have, you can pick up that phone and you can call him and he’s got your back.”
* “I think if you look at the fact that people still know who the (expletive) P.T. Barnum is, you’d have to go with P.T. Barnum as No. 1. Um, I’d probably put Vince (wrestling impressario Vince McMahon) No. 2. Vince and Don are both up there in age. Vince is still in there, (expletive) doing his thing, cutting huge major deals. I would put Don King No. 3. Who else did you have? You’d have to put Arum in there, too. You have to put Arum in there. And if I had to be on there, I’d put me last.”
* “We go all-out. But it doesn’t mean that it’s going to work.”
* “I can say I’m a lot more mellow. If you took the first six employees I had and interviewed them about how I was and how I ran this company and blah blah blah, and then you took six people that work for me now, you’d have very different (expletive) stories. Very different stories.”
* “I hang out in low-key places.”
* “I’m not looking for any new friends. This dude, me and this dude, have been friends since we were 12 years old. A lot of the people that I hang around with are the people that I’ve been friends with since I was a kid.”
* “Yes, I’ve been arrested a few times. Nobody’s ever asked me that — ever asked me that. I’ve been arrested for assault. I got into fights when I was a kid. Street fights. Drinking as a minor. Stuff like that. Normal stuff that people get. I never robbed any banks or anything like that.”
* “Felt like a failure? Hmm. I don’t know. You know this guy, I talked all this (expletive) about soccer, and that guy challenged me, that guy challenged me to soccer? I haven’t called him back yet. I keep putting it on the back burner, to play this soccer player at soccer. Because I know I’m going to fail miserably at that. So I think I haven’t failed because I’m avoiding failure (laughs). I’m (expletive) hiding from it.”
* “I learn more from experiences than I do anything else.”
* “I’ve got no problem saying no.”
* “Army movies look cool, looks fun and (expletive). I can’t (expletive) even imagine being in the middle of that (expletive) and doing what those guys do. Do I consider myself a courageous person? Yeah, in certain ways. The balls that it takes to go out and do what those guys do every day is something that I can’t even (expletive) comprehend or wrap my brain around. And then there’s people who are courageous in other ways. You’ll have a family who has two handicapped children that they have to take care of, and every day they live for these people and they do what’s necessary to take care of these people. That’s (expletive) courageous.”
* “I’m not afraid of death and I don’t have to believe we’re going somewhere when we die. But my wife is super (expletive) religious. She handles that business. I think it’s not a bad thing. I don’t believe in religion and I actually think that religion is bad for a lot of reasons. I think it’s the cause of a lot of violence and death and a lot of other things. But I don’t see the problem in telling your children you go to heaven someday. Let them grow up, get older, and figure out what they believe on their own.”
* “You know what’s going to completely contradict what I just said to you? I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t do this. I can tell you right now, I’ve been in situations in my life where I’m like, ‘Dude, if you get me out of this one … ’ ”
Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/D ... story.html
