UFC president Dana White is one of the most important people in MMA history, but not the most important person.
In fact, it’s really quite impossible to name one person in the sport’s history who is indisputably more important than everyone else.
Yes, Dana White was a major figure in the growth of mixed martial arts and the UFC, and the sport wouldn’t be where it is now without him, but the same can be said for other figures in MMA history.
There are a whole slew of people in the (short) history of modern MMA that can be considered equally important—people who most fans have probably never heard of!
Let’s take the quartet of Pat Jordan, Rorion Gracie, Art Davie, and Robert Meyrowitz, for example.
Pat Jordan was a writer for Playboy magazine who authored a piece on the then little-known art of “Gracie” jiu-jitsu. This article was read by advertising exec Art Davie, who then got in touch with Gracie.
The initial concept of the UFC—a clash between the various martial arts—was born from this meeting.
However, Gracie and Davie needed a pay-per-view company to broadcast and market the event. That’s where Meyrowitz and SEG (Semaphore Entertainment Group) came in.
The UFC was created thanks to these men and their actions.
Yes, Pat Jordan only wrote one article, Gracie & Davie would sell their stake in the UFC and Meyrowitz would nearly bring the UFC to its death, but the fact still stands that the UFC—and therefore modern MMA—couldn’t have existed without them.
Thus, how can one really debate whether or not Dana White is more important than them?
He’s immensely important, but if Davie/Meyrowitz/Gracie never existed, then Dana White would’ve never even gotten a chance to steer the UFC on the right course and make it one of the fastest growing sports organizations in the world.
Nevertheless, without Dana White, it’s undeniable that the UFC would’ve died and MMA would’ve achieved nowhere near the level of success it’s had. For it was White who was friends with the Fertitta brothers and convinced them to purchase the UFC when it was up for sale by Meyrowitz and SEG.
And this is just talking about MMA in North America.
The whole issue of determining the most important person in MMA history gets even messier when you take into account the history of MMA in Japan and Brazil.
Is the legendary professional wrestler Satoru Sayama (a.k.a. Tiger Mask) the most important person in MMA history for creating Shooto, which lead to the creation of Pancrase and Pride?
Or is Mitsuyo Maeda the most important man in the sport’s history since he brought judo to Brazil and to the Gracie family who would eventually develop their own system from it?
The sport’s history is too complicated and intricate to arbitrarily name one person as the most important.
All that can be known for sure is that many people played a role in bringing the sport to where it is now, and Dana White is one of them, and none of them are more important than the others.
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