UFC President Dana White did not have an easy upbringing, the child of a single mom with a dad “who was never around.” But White also insists he would not change a single event from his childhood because it made him the man he is today.
A total “savage,” according to his conversation with Grant Cardone.
That includes his teenage years housed next to a “fat” neighbor who appeared to get his kicks from “terrorizing” the White family.
“We had this neighbor who lived behind us, this punk, who knew it was a single mom with two kids,” White said (transcribed by Low Kick). “And this guy, he used to f*ck with us all the time. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live: One time my dog — my mom had let the dog out in the backyard, and he was barking. And this guy came up and pulled up in our driveway, and was laying on his horn. We had this like diamond-shaped glass on our door, I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And his face was right in the thing, screaming, ‘Shut your dog up.’ He’s going crazy. I remember being so scared, I was like 12 years old or something, I remember being so scared.”
The only thing that scares White now is fighter face offs and incompetent judging.
“When everything changed I was 15 years old, I was sitting at the kitchen table. I heard somebody screaming,” White continued. “My mom was out back cleaning the pool, and it just clicked that day. I don’t know if it’s like the day you become a man or whatever, but I knew that guy was screaming at my mother. I f*cking ran out back and I jumped up on the wall and I was 15, and I said, ‘You fat motherf*cker, I’m not 12 anymore. You stick your fat face over this wall again and I’m going to beat the sh*t out of you.’ The saddest part is, he walked in his house away from a 15 year-old kid, and we never heard from that guy again. That guy was terrorizing a single mom and her two kids until the day I turned 15 and was gonna beat the shit out of him. That was literally, when I think back to that moment in my life, everything changed. That was like the day I became the man of the house.”
July 11, 2016 is the day he became the man of UFC.