Dana White’s Next Project Is Bringing Jiu-Jitsu to the Masses

At UFC 317, the most recent cage fighting lollapalooza, the viral clips and headlines were reserved for the concussive (literally) and convulsive (literally) knockouts.

Not least, Ilia Topurias vicious pummeling of Charles Oliveira in the headlining lightweight championship fight.

But note, just as many fights on the card ended with submissions as they did KOs.

Yes, they might not draw blood or oohs and ahhs, but the subs the angles and the subtlety and the joint manipulationscan be just as effective as the blasting.

And, Dana White hopes, just as entertaining, The UFC impresariohaving recently announced a foray into boxingis now trumpeting another new combat sports venture.

TKO, the UFCs parent company, is now unveiling a Brazilian jiu-jitsu league.

Effectively, its UFC for BJJ, a league featuring a series of fighters in different weight classes, competing worldwide, albeit on the ground.

If BJJ disciple Mark Zuckerbergwhose Meta counts White as a board memberwants to test his mettle, hes welcome.

More realistically, this is for the black belts who want elite competition but dont want to be punched and kicked.

An eight-episode series called UFC BJJ: Road to the Title launched on YouTube and the first official event was held in conjunction with UFCs International Fight Week in Las Vegas.

Joined by former UFC fighters and current senior director of jiu-jitsu strategy & business development, Claudia Gadelha, White spoke to Sports Illustrated about this new venture.

Some outtakes, edited lightly for brevity and clarity.

Sports Illustrated: I know jiu-jitsu figures prominently in the UFC origin story ...

Dana White: Me and the Fertittas [brothers Frank and Lorenzo] bought the UFC because we became addicted to jiu-jitsu.

We started to meet some of the fighters.

I started to realize these guys werent what they were advertising.

You know, these guys were smart.

Most of them went to college.

They were good people.

They had families.

And Lorenzo and I started to go, Wow, this, this could be big if this was done the right way .

But that all started from jiu-jitsu.

SI: You took classes, too DW : From the first time we ever took a jiu-jitsu class, we fell in love with it.

And when you think about the sport, when you and I grew up, your parents will put you in karate or taekwondo, right? And now Brazilian jiu-jitsu is the martial art that men, women and children are taking all over the world.

Its very fragmented.

Theres big tournaments out there where these kids can actually make some real money.

Theres a limited amount of sponsorships out there for them.

What were going to do is were going to come in and add some structure to it, right? So, if you are the best in the world, you can come to the UFC and compete here and win a world title, and you realize when you end up with a UFC belt, its the key that unlocks a lot of doors and can create a lot of opportunity for people.

The other thing that we look to do is make the sport even more mainstream.

SI: It was actually thought John Lewis was a critical figure in this whole story.

DW: Oh, 100% definitely.

Hes the one that not only trained us in jiu-jitsu, but we started to meet a lot of the fighters through him.

SI: Right.

DW: Chuck [Liddell] and Tito [Ortiz] were two of them, and then Chuck and Tito asked me to manage them, and through that, I got into a huge contract battle with the old owner of the UFC, over Tito, and he flipped out and said, You know what? There is no more money.

I dont even know if I could put on the next event.

I hung up the phone, and I go, Holy s---, Lorenzo.

I think the UFC is in trouble.

I think theyre going out of business, and I think we should buy it.

SI: So you always said, Theres basketball in one corner, football in the other, hockey and two dudes fighting.

What are you going to watch? I get that.

How are you going to sell two fighters rolling around with these nuances and manipulations and the sort of subtleties? Its not two guys blasting each other in the face.

This is much more subtle.

How are you going to sell that to a mainstream audience? DW: Think about it this way, right? These are the same questions I was asked when we started the UFC, and where youre dead on is me, you and a lot of other people that are older [remember] the old John Wayne movies.

John Wayne would hit a guy right? He didnt jump on top of him and start pounding him in the face.

No, but John Wayne would do it, knock somebody down and go over it, stand them up, and hed hit him again, right? So our big thing was: How do you explain jiu-jitsu? And I said, This is gonna take f------ 100 years for people to understand this, right? But I was wrong.

And, you know, obviously, I ended up finding the perfect guy to commentate: Joe Rogan.

He was educating people before the maneuver would happen.

Joe Rogan was already walking you through it.

And jiu-jitsu took off like wildfire when the UFC started to grow.

And with this, theres already millions of people who compete all over the world, and our goal is to get millions more involved in it.

And its just, listen, I dont think Im going to go out and, you know, this things going to be a wildfire.

This is going to be a build over the next five, 10, 15 years.

Thats what I do.

I get in there and grind.

Listen, if I can get people interested in watching slapping, I promise you, I will get people interested in watching jiu-jitsu.

SI: Have you talked about where youre putting the cameras? DW: Yeah.

So thats all the work in progress now.

So we created this thingand I credit Claudia Gadelhacalled the bowl.

So the problem with jiu-jitsu, that makes jiu-jitsu boring is they have these flat mats, and when guys get to the edge of the mat, they have to drag them back in.

Also, a change in the rule set: Three five-minute rounds, 10-point scoring system.

And if the fight doesnt end in submission, the judges will pick a winner.

You have rankings.

You got world champions.

You got guys who fight and work their way up.

SI: And you think you can make it so people are going to get it visually, even though theyre not standing up again? DW: Again, if you look at Power Slap, what we did, we have more cameras at Power Slap than the Super Bowl does.

We have slo-mo.

We have every angle and we will get jiu-jitsu dialed in.

Its gonna be a work in progress in the beginning, but I promise you this: We will have this thing looking beautiful on TV within our first five or six events.

DW: Heres what I love.

This is Claudia Gadelha.

She helped us build this thing and get it ready to launch.

And you know, shes one of the pioneers.

Tell him your story and where you come from and listen to the story.

Claudia Gadelha: Yeah, so I was born and raised in a small town by the Amazon, and I watched my mom raising five kids and struggling to raise five kids.

I grew up in poverty.

Then I was introduced to jiu-jitsu very early on, and I saw jiu-jitsu as a tool to change my life, I decided to use jiu-jitsu as a tool to change my life, and I saw other fighters doing the same thing.

So then I went to the best gym, four hours away in my area where I grew up.

DW: She was 15, she went to the freeway and hitchhiked, and a truck driver picked her up and took her four hours away to this jiu-jitsu ...

CG: Its called Natal by the Amazon.

I lived in this gym for three years.

And then I was selling sandwiches at the beach to make sure I could pay for food and to pay for my competition in jiu-jitsu, and when I turned 18 years old, I bought a flight.

Flew all the way to Rio de Janeiro, because thats where the best fighters from Brazil were.

And when I got there, started training jiu-jitsu and MMA, I saw that jiu-jitsu wasnt the sport that would change my life, because there was no opportunities back then, and then I started training MMA, made it all the way to the UFC, fought for the title, coached the Ultimate Fighter , and retired from MMA, and now Im here in the UFC, helping them to build this jiu-jitsu strategy.

DW: Started in the small town, no money, hitchhiked her way over to this Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym, lived in the gym for three years, sold sandwiches on the beach, realizes all the best fighters in the world are down in Brazil, moves out to Rio, connects with [Carlos Andre Pederneiras de Castro] and Jose Aldo, and that whole team gets here, and now shes an executive in the UFC.

This is the kind of s--- that I love with where you know some young person who has the guts to try to make it and bust out of poverty, you know? And now think about, with jiu-jitsu, this will be an opportunity for many kids, many young people, too.

SI: Are you able to say what kind of money were talking about here? DW: As far as what? SI: What the winners are getting.

DW: So, so right now ...

CG: We have the guys that are signing with us exclusively [and] they are signing a six-figure contract with us.

And we have competitors in there making six figures already.

DW: You come in at a base, and you work your way up and you know, and as you start to build guys into stars, and as this thing starts to form, we end up with a ...

with a television deal, this could end up on TV too.

So, you know, right? SI: Why hasnt this been done before? DW: Its been done before, just like UFC, you know, MMA has been done before.

Theres lots of people that have done it, invested a lot of money in it, and thats why its still alive.

You know, one of the things people have to understand is all these other organizations that exist.

Its good for everything.

And then what happens is, when we get involved, the tide rises for everybody.

SI: Whats the media play and where does this fit into the sort of the media rights deal that were all eagerly anticipating getting announced? Where does this kind of fit into the bigger picture? DW: I think that this could fit in with one of the partners.

However this thing plays out, and its going to play out either tomorrow or by September.

I mean, you know how this stuff goes.

Yeah, this could absolutely, positively be a part of it..

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