The sport of MMA took forever to get off the ground, and it was indeed the hard work and risk-taking ability of the Dana White and Fertita brothers that turned things around. The dark days of UFC in the early 2000s weren’t easy for the promotion, as everywhere it went nothing but rejection and cold shoulders greeted them.

In a conversation with Logan Paul in his Impaulsive podcast, UFC president Dana White shared a tale from the early days and how he was banned from ESPN.

 ESPN barred Dana White for saying a curse word on a live show

It is indeed strange to hear about the old times, and the long-forgotten era of the world. White shared a tale from his early days and highlighted the massive change the world has gone through in the matter couple of decades. The promotion is now in business with ESPN, but things were much different for MMA in the early 2000s.

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Dana White spoke about his first-ever interview and how he ended up being banned from the network, “So when we first started, it was a completely different world now than what it was when we bought this company in 2000 and 2001. You know, most of the editors and newspapers, newspapers still existed, they ran the world. And they were run by these 65-year-old guys, who didn’t want to hear about any of the new sports.”

The absence of technology and ways to reach out to the potential audience posed more problems for the promotion, White continued, “There was no internet, there was no social media, I mean the world could not be a different place, and you did not say f*ck. And I remember, one of the first times, I was ever on ESPN, I said something like, I said a*, he’s gonna kick his a*. And everybody lost their f***g minds man. It was like they were never gonna have me on ESPN again. So it was a completely different world.”

MMA and especially the UFC, has become a household name now and has produced countless superstars in the past 2 decades. It is indeed fascinating to see the rise of MMA from the dark ages and become a global phenomenon in such a short time.

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What did you think of White’s story and the rise of MMA? Let us know.