"Everyone always asks me about New York," White said. "I'm in Philly. This is a fight town."
The man knows his audience.
White is an interesting character. He has become the face of the UFC since being named president in 2001. He's equal parts businessman and brawler. One minute White will consummate one of the countless deals that have helped the UFC grow into a hugely successful international phenomenon, the next you'll see him on YouTube berating a reporter with a never-ending stream of swear words and crude insults. He's sort of like David Stern - if Stern had Mark Cuban's inability to self-censor and Chris Rock's affinity for cursing and putdowns.
I first met White in 2005. I was in Vegas to chronicle his improbable rise from low-level Boston boxer and promoter (and hotel doorman) to an executive in charge of a company that Time magazine estimated is worth well over a billion dollars. (The UFC is notoriously tight-lipped about its profits. Insiders say it will sell more than 15,000 tickets for Saturday's event. That should produce the biggest gate for a fight in Pennsylvania history - a total north of $3 million.)
After we went to the bank so he could pull out $64,000 in cash - half was owed to his UFC partners, the rest he called "walking-around money" - White spent the bulk of our first day together explaining how he has made the UFC so successful. He admitted he's a micromanager, a control freak who would make Andy Reid seem carefree by comparison. From picking the fight matchups to clearing the music used in pay-per-view promos, almost everything flows through White.
