Former director of PR discusses her time at the UFC
With the UFC, that’s the phrase we liked to use. There’s no off season. You are on their schedule. You…
With the UFC, that’s the phrase we liked to use. There’s no off season. You are on their schedule. You can’t work away from their schedule. They have fights scheduled on specific dates, and you have to leave on this date in order to make all the preparations for the fight, so you’re on their time. Your life literally revolves around the UFC and whatever the current card is. It got to the point where we didn’t clock time by dates or months. We clocked time by events, by what UFC event number it was. For example, my birthday was UFC 152 or Christmas could be 154, or someone’s baby is due around 151 [laughs]. It was funny when people that didn’t work in the UFC would hear our conversations, and they wouldn’t understand how a person could lead their life by UFC event numbers. That’s how it was when I was there, and I’m sure that’s how it still is for the employees now. You have to follow their schedule because that’s part of your job.
A big part of my job, and something I was very adept at, was handling the pace of the organization’s growth. One morning I came in, and we had bought PRIDE. Days later, we signed Wanderlei Silva. A few days after that, we had the crisis with Randy Couture. Things were constantly happening at a very rapid pace. ‘Oh, we’re starting a magazine’ or ‘OK we’re launching a video game’.
It’s exactly the same thing over here with Glenn. He went from having just a few athletes to having over 30, and a lot of them are big stars. Now, Glenn has bought a clothing company. He’s starting a supplement company, and he has another acquisition in the works. It’s the environment that I’m used to. It’s exciting to be a part of.