Dana White Joins Two Boxers On TIME’s 100 Most Influential People - Despite The Fact He Doesn't Even Run The UFC

When TIME assembled its first TIME100 Sports list for 2026, Dana White appeared alongside heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and two-division champion Amanda Serrano, a sign of how far combat sports have pushed into the mainstream. The recognition was significant, but the timing made it feel unusual.

Only weeks earlier, White had been under oath in Nevada Federal District Court in two active antitrust cases, Johnson v. Zuffa and Cirkunovs v. Zuffa, both brought by UFC athletes active since July 1, 2017. Those cases followed an earlier lawsuit that ended with TKO paying $375 million to athletes from 2010 to 2017. During that testimony, White made a statement that caught many people in the sports business off guard.

“You won’t find one manager on this planet who will tell you I’ve negotiated a deal in I don’t know how long,” White said under oath.

The man who built the UFC and became the public face of the promotion has long stepped back from most day-to-day negotiations. White said Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell now handles most contract talks, working with matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard. According to White, that group now runs the company’s operations.

The next day, Campbell testified and was asked by Judge Richard Boulware whether it was plausible for the CEO to have no role in negotiations. Campbell said yes, then explained that he handles the business side of the promotion while White oversees the wider company. He said that arrangement has been in place since he returned to the UFC in 2017, with White focused on strategy, growth and broadcasting.

For people who follow the sport closely, none of this was really new. The 2024 Roku documentary series showed Campbell negotiating directly with athletes such as Jon Jones and Aljamain Sterling, including a scene in which Jones settled a title bout with Stipe Miocic in a parking lot car while White was not present.

That raises the larger question of what White actually does, since his public image is far bigger than the work he now appears to handle. Nate Wilcox, editor-in-chief of The MMA Draw and founder of BloodyElbow.com, argues that the answer reaches well beyond business meetings and into politics.

On a recent episode of CounterPunch Radio, Wilcox said the real center of influence around the UFC does not line up with the common story that White and Donald Trump became close old friends years ago.

“They’ve been spinning this since 2016, when Dana White suddenly became a politically vocal figure,” Wilcox said. “Prior to 2016, Dana White had been a pretty anodyne, low-key donor to politicians, mainly Democratic, because Nevada is a Democratic state.”

Wilcox said the shift was no accident.

“Around the time Ari Emanuel buys the company in 2016 and Trump starts running for office, suddenly Dana White and Donald Trump are best friends.”

Ari Emanuel, chief executive of Endeavor and one of the most powerful figures in entertainment, took a majority stake in the UFC in 2016. His agency had previously represented Trump. Wilcox argued that the familiar idea of Trump saving the UFC does not hold up. As recently as 2009, Trump had backed Affliction, a rival promotion that ran two pay-per-views directly against the UFC. Wilcox said the two sides were once openly hostile.

“They were bitter, hat ed enemies of the UFC. And Dana White’s on the record making fun of Donald Trump,” Wilcox said.

His conclusion was blunt.

“So this idea that Donald Trump somehow saved the UFC, total hokum. The idea that Donald Trump and Dana White are bros from way back also total hokum. The relationship basically appears out of nowhere in 2016.”

Wilcox kept returning to Emanuel.

“There’s just as much or more evidence that Ari Emanuel is the real player in the Trump inner circle,” he said. “Ari Emanuel was an agent for Donald Trump before he owned the UFC. He might have been involved in Donald Trump’s landing The Apprentice.”

He pointed to one example involving media executive David Ellison during Ellison’s pursuit of Paramount. According to Wilcox, Ellison was sitting cage-side at UFC events as Emanuel‘s guest, not White‘s.

“It’s documented fact that David Ellison was a guest of Ari Emanuel, not Dana White, a guest of Ari Emanuel, cage-side at two UFC events that Donald Trump attended. And at one of those two events, Ellison and Trump were seen getting into a bit of a heated discussion, and Ari Emanuel was seen coming over, putting his arm around both men and calming the waters,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox also said Emanuel has access far beyond the UFC. Pointing to the Ticketmaster and Live Nation antitrust hearing, he argued that Emanuel personally contacted Trump to support one of the most powerful companies in American live entertainment.

“Ari Emanuel personally called Donald Trump and asked him to weigh in in favor of one of the most ha ted monopolies in the United States.”

None of that, Wilcox argued, should be credited to White.

“The fact that he can do that while his employee and sock puppet Dana White is more closely associated with Donald Trump than almost any public figure is just staggering to me. And nobody will talk about it because Ari Emanuel is a guy you don’t want to cross.”

TIME‘s decision to place White, Usyk and Serrano on the same list reflects how much combat sports has grown in cultural reach. Even so, the deeper question of who truly controls that world, from contract talks to political access, remains far more complicated than any single name on a list.