Through his force-of-nature personality, Dana White has transformed what was once a fringe activity, deemed “human cockfighting” by John McCain in 1996, into a $1.5 billion operation that stages cage fights around the world. In 2025, the UFC helped secure its future when it inked a seven-year, $7.7 billion media-rights deal with Paramount that effectively doubled revenues from the previous agreement with ESPN. And on June 14, White will host his most high-profile spectacle: a fight card on the South Lawn of the White House. Ilia Topuria, a Georgian-Spanish lightweight who’s ranked the second-best pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC, is scheduled to face American Justin Gaethje in the main event. “We’re putting on the most historic sporting event in history,” White—like his friend President Trump, no fan of understatement—told TIME
