$7.7 billion television deal<\/a>. But when it comes to mainstream stardom, the roster isn\u2019t quite as stacked as it once was.<\/p>\nConor McGregor hasn\u2019t fought in years. Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar are long gone. Nate Diaz is off the roster, and Jon Jones has one foot out the door. Guys like Sean O\u2019Malley, Ilia Topuria, and Alex Pereira have the potential to fill the gap, but none have yet reached the same crossover appeal just yet.<\/p>\n
Despite this reality, UFC CEO Dana White insists there\u2019s no \u201cstar problem\u201d at all. Speaking on the IMPAULSIVE podcast, White pushed back on the narrative that the company is struggling to produce the kind of household names that can carry the brand outside of combat sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat narrative has been around since f\u2014king \u2013 I was hearing this shit about Chuck Liddell leaving and Georges St-Pierre. \u2018What are you going to do?\u2019 People nonstop talk shit,\u201d White said. \u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that literally nobody knows anything about this f\u2014king business. They all have an opinion, but they don\u2019t know jack shit,\u201d White continued. \u201cThe UFC just signed this deal. We\u2019ve got Power Slap. We\u2019ve got boxing. You\u2019ve got three of the biggest fights in boxing history \u2014 I was a part of two of them, and I\u2019ve only done two. There\u2019s a formula to the stuff. So when I listen to shit like \u2018we have a superstar problem\u2019 or we have a this problem or a that problem, my response to that is: \u2018Believe me when I f\u2014king tell you, we have no problems.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether you believe White or not depends on how you define a \u201cstar.\u201d Financially, the UFC machine continues to thrive, seemingly unaffected by the absence of crossover names. But culturally, it\u2019s undeniable that the sport feels different without the larger-than-life figures who once commanded headlines well beyond fight week. For now, the promotion\u2019s next generation of champions has the chance to step into that role \u2014 if they can connect with audiences the way McGregor, Rousey, or Lesnar once did.<\/p>\n
One thing is certain: as long as White is steering the ship, he\u2019ll never admit there\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time to hit the panic button? Nah. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is in an interesting spot in 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702,3194],"class_list":["post-154516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}