‘Sickness is real’: Dana lifts lid on wild lifestyle in UFC doco … and why he’ll never do it again

Anyone who ever visits the sprawling Las Vegas office of Dana White will notice, on display, a small, glass trophy won 15 years ago.

First prize, he will tell you, from the only blackjack tournament he’s ever entered.

“So I wanna be buried with that thing,” White once told me of the gong which came partnered with $250,000.

A bounty that, while undeniably hefty, doesn’t come close to the faux heavyweight championship belt also on display — gifted by Palms Casino staff after the UFC boss took them for almost $2 million.

Watch new documentary Fight Inc: Inside the UFC on Fox Sports 505 (available via Foxtel & Kayo) on Monday 5 August. All three episodes to air back-to-back from 7.30pm AEST.

Or as White explains it: “The casino’s polite way of saying don’t f…ing come back”.

So if there’s one thing we can tell you about one of the most famous sports administrators on the planet, it’s this — he loves a punt.

A truth proved in so many ways throughout the absorbing, new documentary Fight Inc – an incredible behind-the-scenes look inside the UFC, which airs this Monday night on Fox Sports Australia.

And the incredible revelations kick off in the first episode of a three-part series, with all episodes to air back-to-back from 7.30pm AEST.

Apart from showing White making fights, making deals, even backstage with Donald Trump before UFC 290 – a blockbuster headlined by Australia’s own Alexander Volkanovski – the episode one also takes you aboard a superyacht White hired out for his 54th birthday.

A vessel, just quietly, rumoured to cost US$865,000 a week to hire.

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Captured below deck on a sprawling lounge, and joined by son Aidan, White is shown eating, drinking and then gambling into the early hours of the morning – the latter at his own private table on the yacht.

“The sickness is real,” White laughs at one point for the cameras, exactly as you might expect of a fella who once dropped $3,000,000 in one Rio Casino session.

Elsewhere in the first episode of the three-part series, we also see cameos from a host of Australians including, most obviously, Queensland product and now UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard.

Others to feature include Mel Gibson, Volk, his old man and rising welterweight star Jack Della Maddalena, who White describes as “gangsta”.

So in-depth does the series go, concedes he will likely never do it again.

“I’m glad that everybody liked it,” the UFC boss told Barstool Sports recently after its first airing Stateside.

“I’m glad they enjoyed the series, but it’s too much behind the curtain for me, and it’s disruptive, and there’s a lot of things that you really can’t show.”

White points specifically at the UFC matchmakers – Maynard and Sean Shelby –and the head of his public relations team, Lenee Breckenridge as prime examples of footage he’d really never want to see the light of day.

The series also focuses heavily on the role of UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell which, White admits, makes for incredible viewing.

“What really goes on with Sean, Hunter and Mick,” White continued, “on phone calls and things like this … I loved the Hunter scene where Hunter gets a deal done for the heavyweight championship in a parking lot in a car. Fun s***.

How also spoke of Breckenridge’s dealings with contentious UFC middleweight Sean Strickland – who famously punched a fan on the streets of Sydney before winning the world title against Israel Adesanya.

“How Lenee’s f***ing days go with the Sean Strickland press conference, it’s too behind the curtain for me, and it’s disruptive,” he said. “And you have to be very selective in what we really do.”

While White knows there’s more than enough material to do Fight Inc. repeats forever, he’s just not interested.

“It’s a sliver of what really goes on,” he conceded of the series which airs Monday night on Fox Sports.

“Basically, Fight Inc. covered the people that are close to me, and as you can see, those people are all close to me right now.

“This is my group that’s always close to me.

“There’s so much more and so many other people and so many other things that go on in the UFC.

“You could do 97 seasons of this. We have 600 employees.

“That [show], too, is probably a one and done.”