Friends For 25 Years, UFC Chief Dana White Never Forgot Trump's Backing In 2001

Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts organisation, has been a friend of US President Donald Trump for a long time, from way back in 2001.

Both are in the news after Trump in a post on Truth Social offered his "friend" White the job of the White House press secretary. The UFC head has declined it.

However, there is speculation Trump made a mistake in referring to the correct person, who media reports said is a woman named Dana W White. She has served as the Pentagon chief spokesperson for both the Department of Defence and former secretary of defence Jim Mattis.

Trump's excited post on Truth Social comes 25 years after mixed martial arts (MMA) was widely derided as "human cockfighting" and shunned by mainstream venues. In 2001, Trump hosted UFC 30 and UFC 31 and stayed from the first bout to the last.

Ever since then, White has said he would never turn on Trump because of that early backing.

The White House has been without a press secretary since October 16 when Katie Zacharia left the position after less than a week on the job.

Trump has often tried to associate his MAGA brand of politics with the hugely popular UFC, the largest and most successful company in the world of mixed martial arts whose violent cage fights are broadcast across the globe.

On Trump's 80th birthday in June, UFC held a bloody cage match on the White House South Lawn. The US president has also attended bouts in Miami, New York and New Jersey since winning his second White House term.

When Trump won reelection in 2024, White appeared alongside the Republican for his victory speech. That year, days after an assassination attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania, White gave the final introductory speech for Trump on the closing night of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Trump briefly entered the MMA business himself in 2008 by partnering with a clothing brand to launch a rival promotion that signed up top Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. Despite the competition that folded after two events, White has refused to publicly attack Trump out of respect for the support the businessman gave in 2001.

This year, Trump had listed six UFC fighters that he hoped White would bring to the White House as advisers, "even though some are not from our country."

"We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left," he said of the fighters, who included two Russians and one Brazilian.