Without Dana White, the UFC may not even exist as kingmaker has made star of Conor McGregor, increased everyone’s net worth and has now overseen ‘Fight Island’

As the UFC prepares for the first ever 'Fight Island' event, marvelbet369.com looks at the man the promotion arguably owes its very existence to.

There's a global pandemic on, budgets are being cut globally, but it's business as usual at UFC HQ.

In fact, its shop has already shifted more merchandise in 2020 than it did last year. Like him or loathe him, the 50-year-old White doesn’t care. Without his foresight, it may not be where it is today.

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Brash, unpolished and a liability are a few things his critics have labelled him, but as the face of an empire he has been credited with transforming the mixed martial arts landscape.

From the start, White - and many others - have worked hard to ensure UFC didn't disappear altogether, which explains why, even in times of global uncertainty, he has not been willing to let something as serious as the coronavirus derail his plans for his sport to be the biggest in America.

He even received congratulations from President Donald Trump for being able to stage UFC 249, which took place behind closed doors in Florida earlier this year.

Now his grand plans are coming to fruition vision as the hotly anticipated UFC 251 is in full swing on 'Fight Island' in Abu Dhabi.

White has had eyes on the fight game since his youth stretching back to his days as a 19-year-old hotel valet.

"I'm standing in the lobby one day, and just thinking, 'What the hell am I doing here?'...I make cash every day, plus get a check at the end of the week, got great benefits...but I'm not happy here," he told .

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"So I literally walked out the front door, told my buddy I was quitting. Of course he told me I was nuts and [asked me], 'What are you going to do?' And I said, 'I'm gonna get into the fight business.'

“And that's it...That's what I did."

When he first revealed plans for his tropical fight club as the world battled COVID, some may have not been impressed, but it's the way his mind works.

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He was single minded in his quest to make UFC 249 happen, just as he was when making his first steps into the world of MMA.

If it wasn’t for a masterstroke in 2005 to help him put the company on the map, the 50-year-old has joked he would probably be sweeping up cigarette ends and sleeping rough.

Under his watchful eye, the UFC has enjoyed a meteoric rise and the promotion has staged events around the world from Australia to Brazil, Abu Dhabi in addition to Britain and Ireland.

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Having been in his company shortly before Forrest Griffin dethroned light heavyweight champion Rampage Jackson in 2008, White was adamant the sky was the limit for UFC. He wanted his sport to be bigger than the Super Bowl.

And in just 15 years, the promotion has been turned into a billion-dollar juggernaut just like he always knew it would.

He is said to have made $300m-$400m from its sale in 2016 and, having retained a stake in UFC and continued as its president, is now believed to be worth $500m.

It's unlikely he ever envisioned his office would feature a money gun, a samurai sword and expensive works of art when he was part of the trio who bought the UFC name in 2001.

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Backed by brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the struggling company was bought for a reported $2m and installed White as president.

A school friend of Lorenzo’s, the two had re-connected in later life and White began running his pal’s private gym in the basement of his office in Las Vegas.

This, as Nick Gullo reveals in his book, Into the Cage: The Rise of UFC Nation, was White’s lucky break. It allowed him to see the process by which companies are launched and he watched Lorenzo work, quietly picking things up along the way.

Then, as a result of his management of MMA fighters Tito Ortiz and Liddell, White alerted the brothers the UFC was up for grabs and it was soon theirs.

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“I'd been to a [UFC] event, and I was looking around and thinking, 'Imagine if they did this, and imagine if they did that. This thing could actually be really big," he recalled.

“[So] I called [the Fertittas] and I said, 'I think the UFC's in trouble. And I think we can buy it. I think we should do this.'"

President Trump sees him as important to the US economy, while the rich and famous flock to his fights.

It could have been a lot different, though. Before he joined the UFC he received an offer to run rival promotion the World Fighting Alliance.

So without White’s knowledge of the fight game and the Fertitta’s smart and aggressive business brains, the UFC may not even exist.

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“This awesome relationship that we’ve had is one of the reasons MMA is where it is today and the UFC is where it is today,” he told Mike Straka in his book, Fighting Words.

White's input was even recognised at the inaugural PromaxBDA ‘game changer’ award in 2010.

Voted for by execs from ESPN, HBO and Mark Cuban, it recognises an innovator who’s transformed the business of sports media and sports-media marketing through the development of new technologies, applications, business models and industries.

Scaling the mountain hasn’t been easy and just when it appeared there was nothing more to accomplish, he's still finding ways to climb higher.

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