Dana White vs Vince McMahon: Who’s the better promoter?

When it comes to promoting combat sports, the names Dana White and Vince McMahon stand out from all others in this day and age. McMahon made WWE and by extension professional wrestling a worldwide enterprise and a commercial product with its own household names and big-time annual events. White helped mold UFC, and the mixed martial arts sport more broadly into a mainstream sport, commanding huge numbers on PPV and cable.

And so, it’s natural for the question to arise—is White or McMahon the better promoter? Each have their strengths and a striking number of similarities to how they approach business. Of course, the two men are also operating in different spheres that may have overlapping fan bases and even athletes, but nonetheless, require different approaches to branding and marketing. This article takes a five-point approach to compare these two distinctive and iconic titans of the combat sports industry.

#6 Money

Vince McMahon and Dana White have each generated their share of revenue.

The bottom line in any business enterprise comes down to money. How much money is the company—or more to the point of this article, its promoter—dealing with, and what kind of revenue is being generated.

It’s a close race between Dana White and Vince McMahon in this regard. Reports generally cite UFC having around $700 million in revenue in 2017 in what’s generally regarded as the company’s most profitable year to date. Meanwhile, Forbes reports that WWE was pulling in around $500 million in 2013, but has bettered its fortunes with each year to follow, and in 2017 reported closer to $800 million in revenue.

There’s a degree to which we’re comparing apples to oranges, given that WWE has been around for quite a while longer than UFC, and Vince McMahon has had well over thirty years to grow his business, while White has only been in control of UFC for less than twenty (and the company had been around for less than a decade prior to that. Still, for sheer dollar amounts and growth under a single promoter’s leadership, McMahon ekes out the win in this category.

#5 Adapting

WWE and UFC have each adapted their products for changing times.

WWE has certainly changed over time, going from a shady sports enterprise that tried to convince fans matches weren’t fixed, to a family-friendly national company in the 1980s, to the days of the Attitude Era, to today’s product that reads, in some senses, like a more polished and sanitized version of what WWE was doing during the Hulkamania years. The company has also shifted to take into account social media, and the launch of the WWE Network positioned the company as a leader for not only wrestling, but all pro sports in terms of combining streaming and on-demand services at a fair price point.

UFC, under Dana White, has seen its own share of development, from a sideshow sport seen as too violent for the mainstream to supplanting boxing as the most watched, arguably most legitimate real combat sports company in the world. MMA is in and we can attribute a fair bit of that success to White’s combination of treating it like a legitimate sport with clearly defined rules and weight classes, combined with a showman’s sensibility in promoting big stars and big fights.

In the end, McMahon probably gets the edge here for having spent more time and being a bit more ambitious (and at times outlandish) in how he adapts his product, but its close.

#4 Building stars

Creating new stars is vital for the success of both UFC and WWE.

One big commonality between Vince McMahon’s take on professional wrestling and how Dana White handles mixed martial arts is recognizing the need to build, sustain, and more generally push individual stars. These approaches to promotion aren’t necessarily unique to combat sports as professional basketball has built up individual megastars like Michael Jordan and LeBron James to push the sport on the whole, and movies and TV shows traditionally build around one or two top tier box office draws to drive viewers. In terms of thinking about traditional sports enterprises, though, it’s this interest in individual celebrities that separates any old figurehead leader from a true blue promoter.

McMahon built his promoter career on the back of Hulk Hogan as the face of his company and has since furthered his legacy with icons like Steve Austin and John Cena at the fore.

Dana White has done the unlikely in building his own megastars within the context of legitimate sport, via marketing savvy and careful protection of his most valuable properties. Names like Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor have transcended their sports in unique ways and helped make MMA more accessible to people who might otherwise not be interested.

In terms of building huge stars, particularly relative to the history of the sport, White gets the edge here in recent years.

#3 Thinking outside the box

Both WWE and UFC have eschewed tradition in their own ways.

It’s often said that Vince McMahon’s father and men of his generation would roll over in their graves if they could see what McMahon did to the business in terms of taking it away from its appearance of legitimate sport and selling more cartoonish characters, not to mention promoting concepts like Hell in a Cell or the Elimination Chamber. But McMahon proved himself across decades as, if nothing else, more than able to see beyond tradition and what was already there to create something new.

The confines of a real sport haven’t allowed Dana White quite the same liberties in thinking outside the box as McMahon. He has, however, overseen concepts like The Ultimate Fighter reality TV series, and seeing his sport through to featuring women in prominent roles, in many ways putting him very close to McMahon in innovating within the realm of what his field can do.

#2 Longevity

Both Vince McMahon and Dana White have demonstrated staying power.

Dana White has been instrumental in transforming UFC and MMA as a sport more broadly, shepherding it from a niche low brow interest to an accepted and popular sport. It’s remarkable to think of the progress he’s accomplished since 2001.

On the flip side of thing, Vince McMahon bought his father’s business in the mid-1980s and has since run it for over 35 years. There are those fans who will claim he’s out of touch for his arguably misguided insistence on pushing Roman Reigns, or some of his less sensible storyline choices. However, it’s hard to argue against a guy who took a successful regional company and has spent three decades at or around the top of his industry, building an international juggernaut. It’s possible White will catch up to or even exceed McMahon, but for now, for simply having a longer track record, we have to give the advantage to McMahon.

#1 Winner: Vince McMahon

In the end, nobody beats Vince McMahon at promoting combat sports.

All factors considered, Vince McMahon has a significantly longer track record and history of innovating within professional wrestling than Dana White does in mixed martial arts.

There’s a fair argument to be made that White is actually following McMahon’s example in not only embracing stars who were first built in WWE like Brock Lesnar and CM Punk, but also featuring more WWE style antics that may or may not have been “worked shoots.” That includes Brock Lesnar storming the Octagon to challenge Daniel Cormier in an event most agree must have been staged, to more recent violence surrounding Conor McGregor at press conferences and fight that come across like WWE-style manufactured mayhem than legitimate chaos to some fans.

In the end, White has certainly accomplished remarkable things within the world of MMA, and it’s still up in the air whether he could one day surpass McMahon’s accomplishments as a promoter. For now, though, McMahon reigns as the best at what he does.