It’s not the first time Dana White has heard the claim that UFC is currently lacking superstars.
Conor McGregor, undeniably the biggest star in the sport’s history, has been inactive since 2021. Jon Jones retired and relinquished his UFC heavyweight title, then re-entered the drug testing pool for a desired return. Previous pay-per-view stars such as Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey are no longer on the UFC roster, and the likes of Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov are retired.
UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria and former champions Islam Makhachev and Alex Pereira are among names who currently hold popular attraction in the company, but many see them as incomparable to the previous stars in the organization. So does that mean the UFC has a superstar problem?
“That narrative has been around since f*cking – I was hearing this sh*t about Chuck Liddell leaving and Georges St-Pierre. ‘What are you going to do?’ People nonstop talk sh*t,” White said on the “IMPAULSIVE” podcast. “You just started this interview talking to me about a $7.7 billion dollar TV deal. I could go through the metrics of this business from top to bottom, and I just told you that (Power) Slap guys have made $10 million over the last two years, and the list goes on and on.
“The problem is that literally nobody knows anything about this f*cking business. They all have an opinion, but they don’t know jack sh*t. … The UFC just signed this deal. We’ve got Power Slap. We’ve got boxing. You’ve got three of the biggest fights in boxing history. I was a part of two of them, and I’ve only done two. There’s a formula to the stuff. So when I listen to sh*t like ‘we have a superstar problem’ or we have a this problem or a that problem, my response to that is: ‘Believe me when I f*cking tell you, we have no problems.'”
With the UFC’s new television deal with Paramount starting in 2026, the pay-per-view model will no longer exist in the U.S. McGregor is responsible for eight out of the 10 highest-selling pay-per-views in UFC history, while holding the top four spots.
