5 times that Dana White beefed with rival promoters

#2. Dana White vs. Tom Atencio and Affliction MMA (2009)

Tom Atencio (centre) drew the ire of Dana White when he attempted to promote Affliction MMA

Back in 2008, a number of rival promotions attempted to muscle in on the UFC’s territory. Naturally, Dana White had derogatory things to say about all of them.

He famously slammed the IFL’s “team” format, labeled Scott Coker’s StrikeForce promotion as “StrikeFarce,” and essentially helped to bury Elite XC with his rants against their use of Kimbo Slice. However, the one promotion that arguably threatened the UFC’s market share the most was Affliction MMA.

Originally an MMA clothing company, Affliction decided to get into the promotional game in 2008. When they did so, they went all-in. They inked stars like Fedor Emelianenko, Josh Barnett and Matt Lindland to deals. They even tried to poach Randy Couture and Georges St-Pierre from the UFC, although they failed and only took Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski.

Still, it was enough to earn the ire of the UFC, who programmed a stacked Fight Night directly against Affliction’s first pay-per-view in July 2008.

The ire of Dana White, though, was reserved for Affliction’s head honcho Tom Atencio. An amateur fighter himself, Atencio decided to train for a clash on a smaller card while also promoting Affliction’s third event, something that didn’t sit right with White.

He stated that when the UFC was $44m in the hole, “the last thing I was doing was leaving the office to train for a joke of a fight.” He also claimed that he wouldn’t waste a single second of his time worrying about what Atencio and Affliction were doing.

Atencio did hit back, claiming White would never take a fight himself, only for the UFC president to retort by saying “why would I fight this goof? He’s neither a fighter nor a promoter, he’s a f*cking loser.”

Sure enough, it would be Dana White who had the last laugh here, as Affliction’s money eventually ran out, forcing them to stop promoting later in 2009.

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#1. Dana White vs. Jake Paul (2021)

Jake Paul has continually attempted to anger Dana White in the past few months

With a couple of exceptions, namely Fedor Emelianenko and Cris Cyborg, Dana White doesn’t tend to fire much criticism at fighters competing for rival promotions. Of course, this makes sense given he could end up promoting them in the future.

The exception to this rule seems to be YouTuber-come-boxer-come-promoter Jake Paul. The social media star has done nothing but clash with Dana White since he burst onto the combat sports scene in 2020. It doesn’t look like that’ll change any time soon.

Paul has drawn the ire of White for a number of reasons, but at the top of the list must be the fact that he has continually hit out at the UFC’s pay scale. Whether or not ‘The Problem Child’ really cares exactly how much money the UFC’s stars are making is another question entirely, but it’s clear that his jabs have gotten under the skin of the UFC president.

Dana White has lashed out at Paul on numerous occasions, criticizing him for fighting aging former UFC fighters and fellow social media stars rather than “real” boxers. He even claimed that current UFC featherweight champion Amanda Nunes could knock Paul out.

And when ‘The Problem Child’ threatened to knock out the UFC president should they ever meet in Las Vegas, White’s response was a simple one. He told Paul to “get in line.”

While the furore around Paul in the world of MMA now seems to be quieting somewhat thanks to his upcoming fight being with a boxer (Tommy Fury) rather than a former UFC star, it seems like this feud is one that will continue for some time.

As recently as last month, for instance, Paul was seen attempting to troll Dana White by dressing up as him for a Halloween costume party, complete with an array of “hookers.”