Saturday Night Live cast member Sarah Sherman has called UFC CEO Dana White evil. She tied the label to two things: how the promotion pays its fighters, and White’s close alliance with President Donald Trump. Sherman made the comments on comedian Stavros Halkias’ Stavvy’s World podcast in an episode uploaded this week, and Bloody Elbow picked up the exchange on Friday.
Sherman is a new convert to the sport. She told Halkias she got hooked this summer through her brother and through comedian Jack Bensinger. “My brother Jack and Jack Bensinger got me really addicted to UFC this summer,” she said. She has the connections to get into events but won’t go, because of the right-wing feel of the shows now.
“I feel like I could get them tickets, I could get us all tickets to go. But isn’t it a little evil? It’s just, Dana White is evil.”
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Halkias went further. He said anyone who stays close to White right now is “the dumbest person alive,” and Sherman agreed that such a person is “evil.” Halkias followed that by calling those people stupid, evil or probably both, then added a much cruder line about White and Trump. He said the whole situation has taken a lot of the joy out of watching the sport for him. He also said he and his siblings no longer go out to watch fights because of the company’s MAGA ties, and that he won’t stream a card unless it’s unmissable.
The pay complaint
Sherman then turned to fighter compensation. She asked Halkias if he knew that fighters don’t get paid, which overstates things, since fighters do get show and win money. She said they get annihilated. Halkias said the pay structure is badly broken because, for most fighters, the real earnings come from performance bonuses. He argued that a culture of toughness keeps fighters from unionizing. Sherman noted that MMA has working-class roots, and said watching the sport was the most amazing thing she’s ever seen.
Then she pointed something out herself. Sherman is represented by WME, which is the majority owner of TKO Group, the UFC’s parent company.
How White got here
White used to keep his politics fairly quiet. That changed when he publicly endorsed Trump and spoke on his behalf at the Republican National Convention. Since then Trump has turned into a fixture of the UFC product. He has appeared cageside at a long list of major events, and the relationship peaked this summer with a fight night on the White House lawn. The timing of Sherman’s remarks matters too. Bloody Elbow notes that Trump’s approval ratings keep sliding and that Republicans had a rough showing in this week’s midterm elections, which has added pressure to White’s very public loyalty.
My take: Sherman got the details wrong but the main point right. Fighters absolutely get paid. But a system where a bonus check outweighs your purse means a prelim guy on a four-fight deal is basically gambling with his brain every time he walks out. The best part of this whole clip came from Sherman herself, though. The comedian calling the boss evil is cashing checks through the agency that owns him. She said it out loud, and I’ll give her credit for that.
