Dana White: This is the first time I’ve been nervous in a while
SI.com: Tell the truth: on a scale of 1-10, what would you say your stress level is at right now?…
SI.com: Tell the truth: on a scale of 1-10, what would you say your stress level is at right now?
Dana White: [Laughs] I wouldn’t say I’m stressed out. This is what we do and we do it all the time. I’m nervous. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve been nervous. I don’t get nervous anymore. I get excited and I get pumped up for fights. But you know, I’m nervous for this fight. I’m genuinely nervous like I was at UFC 30, when we did our first one.
SI.com: Tell me a little about how you guys made the final decision to only do one fight, no matter what. At first it seemed like you were considering the possibility of running another fight or some highlights if you had time. How did you decide to just focus on this one fight?
White: It was [Fox Sports Media Group Chairman] David Hill. I went in and said, listen, USA’s Tuesday Night Fights and ABC’s Wide World of Sports, we all used to watch those, all of us who were big boxing fans. I didn’t miss Tuesday Night Fights ever. Every Tuesday night I was on the couch. But when I was younger, I remember my uncles all getting around the TV and watching Wide World of Sports. When we told them the fight was going to be the heavyweight championship, they said, ‘Do that, just do the one fight, the heavyweight championship.’ It makes sense. That’s really the way it went down. It was David Hill’s call.