UFC CEO Dana White spoke with NPR’s Steve Inskeep this week forward of the upcoming White Home battle card scheduled for June 14th on the South Garden. The dialog touched on immigration, masculinity and the cultural rise of sports activities, however the sharpest change got here when Inskeep turned the subject to brains.
Mr. White didn’t shrink back from the query. Relating to mind accidents in MMA (also called CTE), the UFC president mentioned:
“Nicely, it is an inevitable aspect impact on this enterprise. Getting hit within the head is not good for you, and everybody on this enterprise is aware of it isn’t good.”
Dana White says mind harm is inevitable in blended martial arts
That is a troublesome assertion to refute, however White did not attempt to soften it. He framed danger as a recognized situation of participation, one thing each fighter accepts when signing a contract. He cited his previous in boxing as proof that he understands it personally, not simply from the boardroom.
“I did it. At the moment in my life, I would not take again one punch, not one second. It was one thing I used to be very keen about after I was younger. I completely cherished it and I would not change a factor.”
In a 2024 interview with TIME journal, White revealed that he underwent a mind scan and acquired outcomes confirming bodily accidents. “I’ve black spots throughout my mind due to my actions,” he mentioned on the time. “I do not throw a single punch again,” he has mentioned constantly in a number of interviews. Ardour justifies the worth, and adults have the fitting to make that alternative.
Mr. Inskeep pressed Mr. White on why he selected to not battle himself, despite the fact that he had made it clear that he was conscious of the dangers. The reply was simple.
“It simply occurs that someday you notice you are not that approach. I believe the onerous half about this enterprise is that I’ve recognized males through the years who did not notice that and stayed on for a lot too lengthy than they need to have.”
White likened it to a minor league baseball participant or NFL candidate having to determine when to chop ties. He mentioned he himself retired from boxing not as a result of he feared damage, however as a result of he realized he would by no means be a title contender.
“You’ll by no means have seen me battle in a title battle, you’d by no means have seen me as Rocky.” He believes there’s a distinction between fighters who depart on the proper time and those that overstay as a result of they run out of cash or their egos resist accepting decline. He admitted that a part of his common job is having conversations with fighters and telling them their time is up.
“Yeah, there have been loads of guys like that. Not simply guys who in all probability weren’t gifted sufficient to remain right here, however guys who stayed too long gone their prime.”
CTE Questions and Spencer Fisher
Inskeep introduced up a particular case that White has adopted by a lot of his public feedback relating to the fighter’s well being. That is a lawsuit that UFC mum or dad firm TKO settled for $375 million between 2024 and 2025, involving greater than 1,100 fighters who competed from 2010 to 2017. The lawsuit’s predominant declare was that the UFC suppressed fighters’ pay by anti-competitive contracts, however within the lawsuit one fighter publicly acknowledged that fighters’ salaries wanted to be suppressed. As a result of CTE has made it not possible for me to deal with myself.
Spencer Fisher’s case is likely one of the most generally recognized examples of post-career mind damage in UFC historical past. Fisher, a 9-8 light-weight in 17 UFC fights, was identified with a mind lesion indicative of CTE after retiring in 2012. He reported reminiscence loss, dizziness, dizziness, melancholy, and problem holding common employment. His case drew sharp public response when Mr. White described the mind trauma as merely “a part of the mission.”
“However hear, he isn’t the primary and he positively will not be the final. It is a contact sport and everybody who’s completed this at a younger age, together with myself, has handled mind points. It is simply a part of the job.”
This quote was broadly circulated in 2021 and prompted vital criticism. Many followers and commentators argued that this confirmed a scarcity of empathy for particular person fighters coping with the day-to-day penalties of their careers within the sport. White’s defenders countered that his candor in regards to the dangers was extra honest than the NFL’s decades-long resistance to acknowledging a hyperlink between soccer and mind illness.
In an interview with NPR, White rejected the concept the UFC is solely accepting the harm with out doing something about it.
“That is true. All the pieces we do on this enterprise day-after-day, nothing is extra necessary than well being and security. Think about this: Within the 30-year historical past of the UFC, we have by no means had a demise or severe damage in 30 years. You possibly can’t say that about cheerleading.”
It is a comparability he remembers typically. There have been no confirmed fatalities within the UFC Octagon all through the promotion’s historical past, which actually units it aside from different fight sports activities the place fatalities have occurred throughout competitors. White additionally cited the UFC’s ongoing partnership with the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Rubo Middle for Mind Well being as probably the most concrete instance of organized motion.
UFC has donated greater than $3 million to the Skilled Fighters Mind Well being Research, which started in 2011 and enrolled greater than 100 present and former UFC fighters. The examine is the most important of its sort inspecting head accidents in athletes and has generated greater than 30 peer-reviewed analysis papers.
“We started a examine in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic to scan their brains and proceed to watch their mind well being all through their careers.”
This analysis has already yielded vital findings. A 2015 examine by this venture discovered that extra skilled preventing was correlated with decrease mind quantity, significantly within the thalamus and caudate, that are related to processing pace and motor perform. A 2022 Cleveland Clinic examine printed within the journal Neurology discovered a extra hopeful counterpoint. Retired fighters could have a partial restoration in cognitive check scores and mind quantity stabilization in comparison with those that proceed to compete.
White’s place within the NPR interview falls someplace between full consciousness and managed demeanor. He says the harm is inevitable. He says nobody is blind. He mentioned the UFC does extra to check and mitigate dangers than some other martial arts group. What he did not say, and what science nonetheless hasn’t answered, is the place the road is between acceptable profession danger and irreparable harm, and whether or not fighters can know which aspect of that line they’re on earlier than it is too late.
