Not everyone was thrilled to have the UFC come to their town when it was first becoming popular.
During the early inception of the UFC, it was widely looked down on by people, due to the connotations surrounding it and because of people’s perceptions of what it entailed.
Dana White, along with his team, had to work hard to try to get MMA regulated and legalized in a number of states, but this proved to be almost impossible at first, nearly leading to the collapse of the sport.
Years later, the promotion was able to host an event in Wisconsin in 2011, thanks to Donald Trump.
Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC, via Getty Images
Dana White confronted anti UFC protesters before their debut in Wisconsin
In 2011, after successful events in America, the promotion arrived in Wisconsin for the first-time, with an event featuring Dan Hardy, Chris Lytle, and others.
During the UFC’s early days, they used marketing techniques which heavily rely on displaying the violence of MMA as well as shock value to attract interest.
Not everyone was a UFC fan, and not all were excited about the UFC debuting in their state.
The UFC was met with protests in the days leading up to their Milwaukee event.
White and his colleagues were in the vicinity at the time of the protest and decided to calmly confront the protesters.
“So these people that are walking towards us right now, we’re here at the fight, they were out here protesting the fight, ‘UFC brings violence to our town’, so I’m going to try and talk to them,”White said.
“How come you guys don’t like the UFC?”White asked.
“Because I don’t like people beating each other up, that’s the bottom line,”One protester replied.
White went on heroically to defend the game and its values in a back-and forth discussion, urging that it was no different from something like the NFL.
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2025-12-03 22:15:00
