UFC CEO Dana White and President Donald Trump have been close friends and strong supporters of each other for over eight years. However, there was a time when their business interests diverged.
Trump famously supported the UFC in its early days when the organization struggled to find venues. He offered arenas connected to his New Jersey casinos and hotels after Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta purchased the promotion and aimed to revitalize it. This support made White a lifelong admirer of Trump. But in 2008, Trump ventured into the fight business himself by lending his name and celebrity to Affliction, a new MMA promotion led by Tom Atencio.
Affliction quickly positioned itself as a competitor to the UFC, signing several well-known fighters with UFC experience. Their first event even competed directly with a UFC event on the same night. Despite White’s usual outspokenness when addressing rivals, he never criticized Trump for his involvement with Affliction.
“He did launch his own promotion,” White recalled about Trump to Forbes. “It’s funny. I remember TMZ asked me about it, saying ‘Donald Trump’s about to compete with you, what do you say?’ I said I would never speak negatively about Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump was good to us. It really shows how much he appreciates fighting and what he recognized in the UFC back then.”
Affliction quickly disappeared after just two shows and a cancelled third, but White insists he was never bothered by Trump’s involvement with another MMA organization.
“Not at all threatened,” White stated. “It was quite the opposite. They wanted me to say something bad about him, but I refused. This man supported us from the beginning and has always been a good friend.”
While White had always been a vocal supporter of Trump since his early support of the UFC, he remembers a significant shift in their relationship when Trump decided to run for president in 2016.
That’s when Trump asked White to speak on his behalf at the Republican National Convention, an offer that deepened their bond.
“In 2015, when he contacted me and asked, ‘Would you speak at the Republican convention for me?’ He even prefaced it with ‘if you don’t want to, I completely understand,’” White recounted. “Everyone advised me against it, saying he wouldn’t win and it wasn’t worth it.”
“I said, this man has always been good to me, I’ll do it. When I spoke in 2015, that’s when our relationship truly became a strong friendship.”
White’s connection with Trump strengthened further during Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign. White actively campaigned for him throughout the year, speaking at the Republican National Convention again and even joining him on stage during his victory celebration in November.
