White: I wasn’t good enough to be a fighter

UFC president Dana White recently held a private media screening of the reality television series “The Fighters” which he produced, along with Craig Piligian.

The eight-episode series, which follows amateur boxers from rival gyms in Boston’s storied Southie neighborhood, debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery Channel.

In a compelling interview captured by MMAJunkie, White talks about the day he realized he was not a prize fighter.

All I cared about was boxing, said White. It’s all I thought about. I was literally obsessed with it. I quit my job because I wanted to be in the fight business.

“I’ve told this story a million times – you know at one point, I truly believed that I wanted to be a fighter. And then one day, you realize that you’re not that guy. I wasn’t good enough to be a fighter. I didn’t have what it took. Mentally and emotionally, I feel like I wanted it worse than anybody did. But then the day comes when you come to reality that you don’t have it. You know?

“There was this moment in the gym. There’s this guy, he’s like Peter (Welch) he’s this famous guy in boxing. I saw him in the gym one day. He was in his 30s. He was training, getting ready for a fight. The guy had never had a job because all he did was box. He was kind of a local big name.

“And he never made it.

“One day I was in the gym and I said ‘Oh S—, what if that happens to me? And that’s the day you realize you are not that guy.

“Because one thing, I don’t care if you are involved in boxing or in MMA, real fighters, guys who are real who I believe were born and put on this f—ing earth to fight, don’t ever think s— like that. They don’t care. This is what they do and that’s who they are.

“They can lose for or five in a row, and they are looking to get that next fight. Because that’s who they are. And I wasn’t that guy. And I realize it, and, you know, came to grips with it.”