After sticking to traditional MMA bouts with the UFC for years, Dana White has spent recent years broadening his horizons with non-traditional combat ventures like UFC BJJ and Power Slap. However, a new pitch from an unlikely source has come knocking on his door.
Rich Kleiman, NBA star Kevin Durant’s longtime agent and business partner, urged White to consider a Karate Kid-style tournament league, and the UFC CEO was surprisingly receptive. The conversation took place on their Boardroom Talks podcast, where the 56-year-old connected the idea to his existing interest in amateur boxing.
“How sick was that f—ing All Valley State Championship? The Cobra Kai vs. Daniel LaRusso, that was like,” Kleiman said. “Listen, when you’re able, when you’ve parked more space, let’s go into karate, bro.”
“No, you’re absolutely right,” Dana White replied. “And those types of tournaments, and right now we’re talking about USA Boxing. We’re talking about doing some, which is amateur boxing, to get to the Olympics. Look at when you talk about the demise of boxing. When you and I grew up, the Olympic boxing fights were on NBC. They were on TV.
“I know nobody cares anymore, you know, and all the Olympic athletes, nobody has really cared about the Olympic athletes since Floyd. So we’re working on that to try to help amateur boxing. But you are not wrong with the Karate tournaments. Fighting works, man. It works everywhere.”
For those wondering, Dana White was expressing his interest in conducting a karate-based tournament by using the example of his interest in popularizing USA Boxing. So far, USA Boxing’s official website livestreams its fights. But Dana White, alongside WWE CEO Nick Khan and Terence Crawford, went to Texas late last year to strike a broadcasting deal for USA Boxing’s National Championships. No formal announcement has followed, but the interest is genuine.
However, Dana White wants to use that same passion and format from USA Boxing to create a Karate Kid-style league tournament—state champions competing in a bracket-style tournament that narrows down to a world final—based in the San Fernando Valley area of Southern California, where the original film was shot.
Rich Kleiman pitches Dana White on doing a real life Karate Kid-type tournament.
“And you’re talking about the tournament in Southern California that they had in the movie,” White added. “What if, you know, you had a state champion in every state? Then the state champions all fought each other and whittled them down to, like, the top three, who then fought the world.”
While Dana White found Kevin Durant’s business partner’s pitch interesting, his reaction was completely opposite when a UFC legend proposed to him a similar idea.
Dana White rejected Dustin Poirier’s idea of a BMF tournament
Ahead of Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight against Max Holloway last year, ‘The Diamond’ came up with a highly entertaining and chaotic idea. The former interim lightweight champion revealed meeting with Dana White and pitching the boss of a “One Night” BMF tournament consisting of four fighters: Dan Hooker, Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway, and himself as the participants.
“I was in [Dana White’s] office maybe six, seven months ago telling him, ‘Hey, let’s do a BMF tournament,’” Poirier revealed on the Ariel Helwani Show last year. “And I pitched me, Gaethje, Max, and Dan Hooker … But, he thought I was talking about a few months tournament where the guys fight each other, then a few months later they fight again. I was talking about a one-night tournament.”
Poirier had flexibility on the format too: ten-minute rounds, five-round bouts, or three-round bouts across one night. The UFC veteran believed the spectacle would have driven great viewership.
“I would be totally down with doing the ten-minute first round,” he said. “If they wouldn’t allow one night, five rounds each fight, or even one night tournament, three rounds each fight. It would be too many MMA rounds in one night for a guy. I would do one long one, personally. I thought it would be a cool idea.”
However, despite the passion, Dana White declined, telling Poirier the state athletic commissions would not sanction it.
The success of existing karate-based promotions like Karate Combat suggests there is an audience for the format White and Kleiman discussed. Whether it moves beyond a podcast conversation remains to be seen.
