8 Most Powerful People In MMA

Once upon a time, Dana White, a fighter manager and boxercise instructor, discovered that the UFC, owned by Semaphore Entertainment, was on the verge of going under. Recognizing the value in the brand, he convinced a couple of friends with deep pockets - the Fertitta brothers - to buy the UFC. After a disastrous early run that saw the company lose money hand over fist, the success of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV turned things around.

Suddenly, Zuffa, the company established by the Fertittas and White, was raking in the dough. The UFC was the biggest thing in combat sports. It conquered all its competition: Pride, Affliction, Strikeforce. It bought all of their fight libraries. It absorbed both the WEC (focused on the lower weight classes) and Strikeforce. It launched the biggest online streaming service the fight business had seen, Fight Pass.

Then in 2016, Zuffa, with the UFC at the peak of its popularity to date, sold the UFC to WME-IMG for a whopping $4.2 billion dollars. White stayed on as President, but made somewhere in the vicinity of $360 million dollars.

Still running the UFC, White has the power to make or break fighters. He can dictate who the stars are, who headlines what cards, what fights are made. Sure, the UFC has matchmakers, but White's word is above all others.

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