Into the Cage

by Nick Gullo

  Will you run for political office again?

  “I’d like to. We’ve got a real dirtbag in office from my district. There are few things more frustrating than Congress raising good hard-working people’s taxes—when half these [politicians] don’t even pay their own taxes. It’s the ultimate irony.

  “My motivation for running is to represent good people. It’s not a job that I want to do, it’s a job I’m willing to do.”

  How does political campaigning differ from fight promotion?

  “They are both very difficult, and unique. With campaigning you go house to house. People slam the door, kick you off their property. The same thing happens in the fight world—there’s a lot of negativity when you are out there promoting. It’s just part of it.”

  Weigh-in mayhem; countdown, Chael backstage with Mike Dolce; Chael on deck; Sonnen vs. Silva II; Chael backstage after loss; Dos Santos and Silva celebrating; reconciliation—true martial artists; Dana counselling Chael immediately after fight.

  12: JOE ROGAN

  Joe Rogan and Duncan Trussell.

  AFTER FINALIZING THE UFC PURCHASE, Dana White returned from New York and in his office stood amongst the assets of his newly acquired company—eight tattered cardboard boxes. He tore back a lid, rifled through stacks of dusty VHS tapes, and popped in a cassette. As he laid out faded brochures and wrinkled T-shirts, the entire day and into the night he watched prior events.

  At some point, perhaps while propping a championship belt atop his bookcase, he heard laughter. On the screen: comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans, elbows on knees, leaned in his plush chair and asked a talk-show guest how Steven Seagal might fare against a real-world MMA fighter. The screen cut to Joe Rogan, who, snorting and waving his hands, showed just how a fighter would grab the actor’s greasy ponytail and Bam! Bam! Bam! beat him senseless.

  Dana cracked up, and returning his attention to the belt, Damn, this thing looks good up here, he reflected on the fights he’d just watched; there was something missing. What the hell was it? Not the fights—he’d seen some barnburners. Not the cheesy graphics, or the synth music—they were already on the “got to go” list … Shit, that’s it!

  This is when I like to think the ceiling tore asunder, and raising his hand to block the fiery light, in a road-to-Damascus vision Dana glimpsed the UFC in its present glory: an overflowing arena, the crowd chanting and seated alongside the Octagon, hunched over a microphone, the powerful Joe Rogan.

  Listen up, son, this is not your parents’ fucking sport!

  I know, it’s ridiculous, the atheist struck with a heavenly vision. But the point is, when Dana swore to overhaul the whole package, he knew he needed a transformative figure—not a fighter per se, but a ringside archetype to entertain and inform viewers. Fuck the suit and tie or, worse, tuxedo-wearing commentators. Who set the sports broadcaster cum Brooks Brothers trend? Fake. Fake. Fake.

  No, this new-era fight league needed Joe Rogan, the Fear Factor host who was willing, on a national broadcast, to mock the most recognized martial arts actor in the world.

  After making countless calls Dana finally reached Joe. “I told him we’d just bought the UFC, and I wanted him ringside, calling the fights. ‘I don’t have any money, I can’t pay you,’ I said, ‘but if you can just hang in there, when this thing takes off—’ ”

  Joe agreed to hitch his horse to the ragtag caravan, and over the next few years he commentated ten, twelve events por nada. “Now, whatever Rogan wants, Rogan gets,” Dana says. “Without him, fuck, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Say what you want about Rogan, he lives and breathes martial arts. Training and competing since he was a kid, at nineteen he won the U.S. Open of tae kwon do. After high school he left the dojo for a career in stand-up comedy, which led to a role on the sitcom NewsRadio. But his love of the fight never waned. In 1997 he conducted backstage interviews for the prior UFC owners, and he now holds a black belt in jiu-jitsu.

  It’s difficult to overstate Rogan’s impact. If Dana White is the pope of this new religion, then Joe Rogan is its archbishop. Fighters enter the cathedral, and fighters depart, and some never to return. But there Joe stands, announcing their passage.

  The night of my first UFC fight I followed the entourage to the Mandalay Bay for an official after-party. At the door a bouncer waved us inside. I pushed through the crowd, trying not to fall behind, up the stairs to a booth overlooking the floor. Screens on every wall flashed Dana’s photo. He was hosting this get-together—which, I didn’t realize, he’d never done before and never would again.

  Living on the beach in rural Florida, I hadn’t set foot in a club in eight years. The slinky dresses, the thumping bass. What a trip. I downed a few shots, and staring out at the dance floor, I realized people were staring back.

  Did I spill nachos down my shirt? Is there something wrong with my hair?

  I look beside me, and, oh shit, there was Joe Rogan, just chilling.

  Dana strolled up, rapped a bit with Joe, then he grabbed my neck and asked if everything was cool. Joe watched the exchange, and when Dana walked off, he gave me the nod.

  “Hey—” I offered my hand, about as awkward as if I’d just wandered down from the Appalachian Mountains “—I’m a huge fan, glad to meet you.”

  “Cool. So how do you guys know each other?”

  “We grew up together.”

  He tilted his head, as if to say: Really. If you grew up together, then why the fuck, in seven years, have we never met?

  “Yeah, this is my first fight,” I admitted.

  Long pause. His head tilted a bit further.

  “Uh, I was in Florida.”

  Not long after that night, Rogan debuted The Joe Rogan Experience, a bi-weekly podcast. That was about the time I started this project, and trying to learn everything about this new world, I decided to jump down the Rogan rabbit hole, and follow the trail, no matter how thorny, or how strange.

  When Rogan advocated jiu-jitsu training, I started grappling. When he claimed that sensory deprivation tanks expanded consciousness, I floated. When his comedian buddies, a.k.a. The Deathsquad, appeared on the podcast, I attended their stand-up gigs. And when he touted “the fleshlight,” a faux flashlight that when unscrewed revealed a silicone vagina, well—

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s way too much information, you say—and dammit, what the hell does a bizarro podcast have to do with the UFC?

  Well, everything.

  When Dana vowed to recraft the sport into something so kick-ass thrilling fans couldn’t help but flock, he banked not only on Rogan’s encyclopedic fight knowledge but also on his Fear Factor audacity, and the nothing-is-off-limits approach of his stand-up comedy. So the last thing he’d do is throw a wet blanket on him.

  But the pressure is mounting. During the maiden Fox Broadcast, Dana and Rogan stood before the cameras, shouting and preaching the word to this wider-than-ever audience, while in their earpieces a Fox producer urged Rogan to calm down.

  “What the fuck, that’s how he always acts,” Dana later groused in the dressing room, “he gets me all fired up, and that’s why I brought him on board in the first place. Fuck that. We’re not changing a thing.”

  Let Rogan be Rogan—it’s the same punk rock ethos that Dana embraced in his youth. Why he still wears Dead Kennedys and Misfits T-shirts. Yet, in these latter days, it’s not just pressure from Fox—it’s also internal.

  Growth, stress, adaptation—it’s a relentless cycle—and as the company grows to five-hundred-plus employees, with recruits arriving daily, more often than not this fresh talent hails from Fortune 500 companies and Ivy League schools. Which makes sense. Hire the best. Hire proven winners. And task them with protecting the brand.

  And herein lies the schism: for eight years the brand was forged by a T-shirt-wearing bald maniac who shouted fuck across public podiums, cursed during interviews, and even behind company doors. For example, when executive meetings denigrated into unproductive yap-fests, whic
h is standard fare for any corporate environment, Dana would point across the table and yell: “Shut the fuck up! Just shut the fuck up and don’t say another fucking word! You’re talking stupid and I don’t want to hear any more!”

  Protect the brand?

  Gotta love that. Let’s not forget Rogan, whose typical podcast tenets include:

  1. Legalize Cannabis

  2. Psychedelic Excursions

  3. All Things MMA

  4. Bigfoot might/might not exist

  5. Government Conspiracies

  6. Stand-up Comedy

  7. Don’t Act Like an Asshole

  8. Computer Simulation Theory—i.e., the world as we perceive it is not real; as in The Matrix, we’re all living in a virtual program

  It’s a mad fusion, and every week the sect grows. In fact, it’s so popular that in summer 2013, the SyFy channel began airing Question Everything, a cable show hosted by Rogan, which incorporates elements of the podcast.

  Then there’s the stand-up. Most Friday nights before the fights, Rogan performs at a club in the host city. After announcing the gigs on the podcast, then tweeting to a million-plus followers, the tickets usually sell out in minutes. Gone. Just as gone as the days of traditional marketing, where, in these host cities, morning of the shows he used to make the rounds and pump the gigs on local radio stations. Now his disciples travel the country, following the UFC cavalcade like post-millennia Grateful Deadheads.

  So what’s Rogan really like?

  That’s a question I’m often asked. I’ve grubbed with Rogan, watched boxing bouts in the arena dressing rooms with him, seen his stand-up countless times, chilled on-set during several of his podcasts, even hung backstage with the Deathsquad before one by one they stepped on-stage.

  Understand, my backstage m.o. is always fly-on-wall: sit in the corner, contribute nothing, keep the camera low until they’ve forgotten I’m there. When you listen to the podcast, or better yet, watch the proceedings live, you get the feeling that Rogan and guests are hanging out in a basement, smoking pot, shooting the shit. And that’s a fairly accurate summation. Same with the comedy shows. Prior to a gig, Rogan and his cohorts hang in a back room and await their stage calls. Seated against the wall, I was surprised by how much this resembled the backstage UFC locker rooms before a fight. The pre-war tension, the nervous laughter, the small talk—anything to prep for those ten, fifteen minutes under the lights.

  There’s also the pecking order. Anthony Pettis, Lavar Johnson, Cung Le, Frankie Edgar—they all might share the same locker room, but when Anderson Silva strolls through the door, they stop and watch the master pass.

  Same with the comedians. Joe leads the conversation and they follow.

  So what’s Rogan really like?

  Standing amongst the toughest men on the planet, or comics who every night endure unruly drunks and hecklers, Rogan is the Alpha Male.

  Here’s their backstage exchange: Rogan leans near Duncan Trussel, a fedora-wearing hippie, and whispers something I don’t catch. Duncan responds in a high-pitched lesbian voice (his words, not mine)—and typing this now, I’d like to reach back and let Duncan know his left testicle is stricken with cancer, so enjoy it while you can, buddy, because in eight weeks a surgeon’s gonna slice that lil guy out like a rotting walnut.

  Joey Diaz, a heavy-set Cuban with a Bronx accent, announces that he’s volunteering as coach for a youth basketball team.

  Ari Shaffir, a lanky bearded Jew sitting cross-legged on a chair, says he’d like to volunteer and give back, “… it’s gotta feel good, right?”

  “Yeah, but you sit like that,” Rogan quips, “and some kid’s gonna point at you and say, ‘Daddy, I don’t know about that man.’ ”

  Diaz howls. “Hah, but those long legs are perfect for triangles. Mechanical advantage is everything.”

  With these guys there’s no segue, just bap! bap! bap! so now we’re on to MMA.

  Ari: “Yeah, how ’bout that Stephen Struve.”

  Rogan: “Jon Jones.”

  Duncan: “Nick Diaz.”

  Diaz rubs his belly. “Oh man, no more steak and eggs for me, that meat was still alive.”

  There’s a long lull as we, at least I, envision a bloody ribeye lodged in his cavernous intestines.

  “I just had a meeting with this production company,” Rogan says, “they want to film a TV show; bring in scientists, challenge Bigfoot claims, shit like that.”

  Everyone nods. No shock here. Hollywood comics, such as they are, spend late nights in comedy clubs, and early mornings at casting calls, hoping, praying for a television gig to pay the bills. But Rogan’s got the Midas touch. Of course when he wades into the digital landscape he’s so successful his stand-up career rockets through the atmosphere, and now he’s killing it with Onnit—an Internet company that sells fringe nutritional supplements, kettle bells, blenders, medicine balls, protein bars, sea salt, raw killer bee honey—to listeners. So of course a production company wants to film a show around the podcast.

  Rogan leans for a view of the stage. “I love this room because these same people show up every week, and that forces you to work on new shit.”

  Beyond fate or even divine providence, what he’s hinting at is really the true explanation behind the “mad fusion”—it’s really a closed-loop fission reaction in which UFC events feed the podcast which feeds the stand-up which feeds Onnit which feeds the fans … and now, at this club, The Ice House in Pasadena, the same crowd shows up every week after week, so they’ve heard each comic’s routine more than once, which is what he means by, “forces you to work on new shit.”

  “Yeah, and they’re super supportive here,” Ari says.

  Redban waddles through the curtain, wiping sweat from his neck. As the producer of all Deathsquad podcasts, he handles logistics and tech (computers, microphones, Internet connection, etc.). Rogan clasps his hand, then ducks through the curtain, and as with any fighter heading into the arena, I grab my camera and follow.

  Equal parts hysterical domestic insights, mind-bending suppositions, and aggressive outbursts, Rogan’s routine recalls the best UFC fights. Gay marriage, time travel, his young daughters, breast implants, masturbation—nothing is off limits—but when he talks MMA, miming Brock Lesnar grabbing hold of a guy and raping him … my camera drops.

  The routine is no longer funny. That’s when I realize, as the sport matures, and everywhere it’s UFC billboards and UFC commercials, and as the arenas grow and the events take root in Madison Square Garden, Dallas Cowboys stadium, India, China, Russia, just as that scale tips and everyone you know is connected in some way to MMA, the UFC will face its greatest existential crisis as not one, but two charismatic leaders leave the cathedral.

  Fold and highlight this page. Peering into my crystal ball, I promise you, five, ten years at most, fans will reflect all dew-eyed on this golden age, when despite the success and acceptance, there still lingered whiffs of the mad fusion that launched the UFC.

  Soon, as with every other major sport’s league, a suit-and-tie commissioner will preside over every press conference, and never will he utter a four-letter word. And soon, a suit-and-tie announcer will commentate every fight, and never will he wave his arms and shout at the camera.

  There will never be another Dana, and there will never be another Rogan. So while this sunset remains golden, Ponyboy, stop and suck at that fresh air.

  Now suck again.

  Top: Rogan and Dana during the podcast.

  Bottom: Joe and Dana.

  Top: The Deathsquad.

  Bottom: Rogan doing stand-up.

  Joe Rogan prepping to intro the fighters, Ultimate Fight Night 25.

  13: DANA WHITE

  Dana White, moments before addressing the world.

  “Oh, shit. You’re friends with Dana White? Just one question, I promise—what’s the deal with …”

  —ANONYMOUS UFC FAN(S)

  OPPRESSIVE HEAT. CARS JAMMED ON THE STRIP. Tourists crowding the sidewal
ks and lined up outside the bars and restaurants. For those of us raised in Vegas, July 4th is a nightmare. Time to book that vacation, unless, of course, it’s International Fight Week, the UFC extravaganza that featured the multi-day Fan Expo and culminated with the mega-rematch of Anderson Silva versus Chael Sonnen.

  To court the media, the PR department booked a private cabana overlooking the Wynn Casino pool. Reporters filed in, sat under umbrellas and asked Dana their questions, then filed out. Next. Next. Next. This is called selling the fight, and if you’re on the sidelines it’s about as fun as, I don’t know, answering the same questions over and over.

  Then a Canadian reporter dropped on the couch and after a few tired questions asked Dana how he made new friends. Which evoked a pause. “I’m not looking for any new friends. This dude—” he nodded my way “—me and this dude have been friends since we were twelve years old. A lot of the people that I hang around with are the people that I’ve been friends with since I was a kid.”

  Which brings us to—

  Question 1: Has Success Changed Dana?

  You wouldn’t believe how often I hear this one. For good reason. Fame, money, it’s the American Dream, and yet we secretly wonder if its fulfillment corrupts. On Joe Rogan’s podcast (#247), Tito Ortiz complained, “[Dana’s] a different man. Totally different. He’s not the same person. That’s not Dana … I love him, I miss his friendship. Me and him were boys. I’ve seen him change … he’s become, uh, he’s become famous.”

  “Well, I’ve known Dana from the beginning,” Joe responded, “from when they first bought the organization, he’s definitely different. He’s more confident now, he’s more successful. But me and him, we have a very different relationship—”