It is April 11, 2026. President Donald Trump is in Miami, sitting cageside at his favorite live show on Earth: the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the pinnacle of the bloody sport of mixed martial arts. At his side is perhaps his best friend in the entire world, UFC President Dana White. The fights that night are electric: knockouts, cuts, blood all over the mats. At that very moment, Vice President J.D. Vance is in the final stages of failing peace talks with an Iranian delegation in Pakistan, but for a few short hours, the president has a front-row seat to a much more entertaining war. There is only one thing missing: Trump’s favorite fighter.
White will get a chance to rectify that at this month’s extravagant Freedom 250 celebration, featuring the first-ever UFC event on the White House’s South Lawn. “He looks at me and says, ‘Why is Derrick Lewis not on the White House [fight] card?’” White remembers of that April fight. “He doesn’t like Derrick Lewis. He loves Derrick Lewis.”
Lewis, for those unfamiliar, is a veteran heavyweight nicknamed “the Black Beast,” infamous for ripping off his shorts at the end of fights. After one recent win, Lewis dropped trou, got on all fours, and hiked a leg in front of his defeated opponent’s corner, pretending to piss on it like a dog. He is, in other words, an American hero, and all it took was that one question to make White spring into action. By the end of the night, Lewis was slated to fight at the White House.
Watch the video interview below
The upcoming cage match in honor of the country’s 250th birthday was arranged at the behest of the president and will be put on by perhaps the single most important figure in American sports. At 56, White is no longer a small-time boxing coach from South Boston. He’s not even the fast-talking Vegas card shark and fight promoter who first captured the eye of a certain real estate titan from Queens. He is the gateway to America’s most intimate displays of violence, a multiplatform empire that he tells me will encompass “every way that you could possibly kick another person’s ass.” That business has intersected with some of the most powerful people in every corner of the world — after our interview, White casually told me he’d lost a key matchup for the Freedom 250 event because Vladimir Putin called one of the Russian participants and told him not to perform at a site that represents the heart of a rival superpower.
To best understand how White got to this place, you have to understand the allure of watching someone get punched in the face — or better yet, of doing it yourself. In recent years, business has been good: In 2025, White inked a new $7.7 billion deal with the Paramount Skydance Corp., giving a sport that was once deemed too violent for TV a prime-time slot.
In late April, White dropped by New York City for the Rolling Stone Interview. Two nights after we met, he was at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when a gunman burst into the building. White was captured on camera shortly after, absolutely glowing, saying, “I didn’t get down. It was fucking awesome.”
That’s who White is, I think. He’s here for the crazy, for the surprising, and most of all for the violent. He wants to build, expand, and conquer. He wants to take it all in and ask, “What’s next?” The day that question doesn’t have an answer, White won’t be drawing breath.
“There was this buzz in the house when fights were on that I became addicted to.”
When asked about his relationship with Donald Trump, White is clear: “I don’t want anything from him. I’m not looking for anything from him. There’s nothing transactional in our relationship. We’re friends. And when we get together, it’s literally no different than any other person in this room when you get together with somebody you’re friends with.”
White maintains that he remains neutral in the political sphere, despite his high-profile support. “You never hear me say anything left, right. I’m right down the middle,” he asserts. As for the future of the UFC after his tenure, White remains pragmatic. “I run this entire business. I make all the decisions, and I’m very involved, from production to matchmaking, to you name it. It will be very different when I’m not here anymore. Still exciting, still fun, but it’ll be different.”
“Donald Trump is human. Everyone’s got a thing, and Trump’s thing is the UFC.”
Ultimately, White is focused on the present. “I don’t give a shit about legacy. I have these plans and these ideas and things that I want to do, but I don’t ever think about legacy or any of that kind of stuff. I get up every day, and I want to do something. I want to win. I want to break a record. I want to go to the next level every time that I get out of bed.”