The UFC and Dana White have carved out the path for MMA as a global entity. Along the way, we’ve seen some of the most spectacular matchups imaginable… with some occasional wackiness sprinkled in, of course.
Late 2019 and the majority of 2020 introduced a new way of life when it came to a lot of things. For combat sports, however, a celebrity integration crept its way into the boxing world primarily thanks to the likes of Vine and YouTube sensations, Logan and Jake Paul. Their influence took off to such a degree that the brothers have fought multiple times since their first event with Jake now competing against former MMA fighters. Presumably, he’ll get to the professional boxers at some point.
Despite Jake taking his career as a boxer more seriously than Logan, it appears to be much more likely that Logan can make it into the UFC octagon before his little bro. White was on Logan’s Impaulsive podcast on Tuesday where the two had an interesting interaction after discussing the prospect of Jake vs. Conor McGregor.
“Okay, okay. F*ck the Conor thing for a second,” Logan said. “What about any other fight? Like if I wanted to do a UFC fight? Is that something you’d entertain?”
“Who would you want to fight?” White responded. “You have wrestling and boxing. Did you ever do jiu-jitsu? I’m not saying no. I’m not saying no.”
As openly against the type of spectacle that Jake has created and continues to work with, White admittedly understands why it exists. The UFC boss looked back at some of his own decisions during the discussion and wanted to clarify that it definitely hasn’t always been “the best vs. the best.”
Ridiculously enough, Logan Paul’s high school wrestling background and minimal boxing experience already give him an arguably better background to get into MMA than a certain two-time UFC veteran…
“Everything we do kills the bottom line. We have the most successful combat sports business of all time,” White said. “What we do here is completely different than what him and his brother are doing. I’m looking for the absolute best in the world. These guys who have trained their whole life, they fight in these smaller shows then they make it to the UFC and we put the best against the best. It’s just not what we do. There’s a market for what these guys do and there’s money to be made in it.
“Not saying that I don’t do those types of things. Like, I brought Brock [Lesnar] in but Brock won the heavyweight championship. I brought [Phil] CM Punk [Brooks] in. That one didn’t work out as well as Brock. The Floyd[Mayweather]-Conor fight, fans wanted to see it. Everybody wanted to see it. That fight took on a life of its own. Floyd and I got together and figured it out and it made sense and we did it.”
