From the moment Aljamain Sterling accepted the fight against Sean O'Malley to when UFC executives gave Jon Jones the news that he had torn his pectoral muscle and would miss UFC 295, the recent Roku documentary series Fight Inkgave fans a real look at what goes on behind the scenes at the world's biggest MMA promotion.
Unfortunately, while people seem to have enjoyed the three-part series, UFC CEO Dana White has said that a sequel is probably not in the cards.
White acknowledges that there's a lot more that goes on at UFC than is captured in the documentary, but he's in no rush to reveal everything that goes on in the day-to-day operations involving executives and other employees.
“I'm glad people liked it,” White told Barstool Sports. “I'm glad people enjoyed the series, but for me there's too much behind the scenes story, too much confusion, too much stuff I can't show.”
White specifically pointed to UFC's matchmakers and head of the PR team as prime examples of footage he would never want to see the light of day.
“What's happening to Sean? [Shelby]Hunter [Campbell] Mick [Maynard] “The phone calls and stuff like that were really funny,” White said. “I loved the scene where Hunter gets in the car in the parking lot and signs the contract for the heavyweight championship. That was a fun scene.”
“[Senior VP of Communications] Lenny [Breckenridge]”I can't really get into the relationship between Lenny and Sean Strickland, what Lenny's day to day life is like with Sean Strickland's press conferences, etc. That's too behind the scenes for me, and it's confusing, and I have to be very careful about what I actually do.”
UFC matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard are typically not allowed to say much about how fights come about or end, while UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell is involved in nearly every part of the promotion, including matchmaking and contract negotiations, which also never go public.
Despite everything presented on the show Fight InkSpeaking about the series, White is adamant that it's not possible for the show to delve deeply into all the different moving parts that make UFC a smoothly functioning machine.
He knows the UFC has plenty of work to do. Fight Ink. Forever, but he's not interested in revealing too much of his company's secret sauce.
“That's just a small part of what's going on,” White said. “Basically, Fight Ink I mentioned the people in my inner circle, and as you can see, those are the people in my inner circle now. This has always been my inner circle. There are so many other people and so much going on at UFC. I could do this for 97 seasons. We have 600 employees. [show]Probably a one-time thing too.
“We could do this forever and people would be amazed at what happens every day.”
