Billionaire or not, UFC President Dana White is a very rich man who has everything. But former Playboy Playmate of the Year turned UFC reporter Nina-Marie Daniele gave Uncle Dana something money can’t buy.
While top MMA journalists such as Ariel Helwani focus on reporting news, UFC reporter Nina-Marie Daniele has captivated the MMA world with her unique style, adding spice to her interviews by asking personal and intriguing questions; and that’s exactly what happened when the 2018 Playboy Playmate of the Year interviewed UFC President Dana White recently.
Interviewing the boss can be daunting but not for Nina-Marie Daniele. Not only did she get White to agree to reveal the UFC 300 main event if their interview hit 10,000 comments, (we’re still waiting for it Uncle Dana), she was able to get up close and personal with the UFC boss.
First, Daniele presented White with a signed and framed portrait of herself and Dana as cherub babies. “When I think of us, I think of us as little cherub angel babies.” said Nina while giving white the framed illustration captioned: “Besties Forever!”
A surprised White mused: “This is going right in my office… This is the best interview ever.”
“I have one more gift for you,” Nina added. “I really thought about this one. I was like ‘What do you give a man who has everything?’ Freedom. I wrote you a check for $2,500 to pay back Whitey Bulger so that you can go back to Boston and live your life as a free man.”
“Whitey Bulger is dead,” replied white. “He’s dead…This was a cute idea. This was the cutest thing ever. I’m seriously cashing this.”
Who was Whitey Bulger and what was his connection to Dana White?
James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was an organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville, a city near Boston. Once listed among the FBI’s most wanted fugitives along with Osama Bin Laden, Bulger ran many illegal activities like loan sharking, arms trafficking, truck hijacking, and extortion.
Meanwhile, White entered the fight business together with Golden Gloves champion Peter Welch and the two of them put up a boxing gym in Boston. Instead of fulfilling his ambition to become a boxer, Dana became a boxing trainer for kids and businessmen.
Sometime during the 90s’, White claimed that Bulger sent two of his men to extort $2,500 (~ AUD 3,800) from White. A few days later, Bulger personally called White to demand the money.
“He basically said, ‘You owe us money’, recalled White via Fox Sports. “It was like $2,500 (~AUD 3,800.00), which was like $25,000 (~AUD 38,000.00) to me back then, and said, ‘You owe us money.’ It was actually a guy named Kevin Weeks, who if you saw the trial he’s Whitey’s right-hand man. I’m sure he’s very prominent in the movie, but yeah basically said I owed him some money, and I didn’t pay him.”
“This went on for a while and one day I was at my place and I got a call and they said, ‘You owe us the money tomorrow by 1 o’clock’. I literally hung up the phone, picked up the phone and called Delta, and bought a ticket to Vegas.”
White eventually founded the UFC with the backing of the Fertitta brothers. After the UFC’s $4 billion (~AUD 6 billion) in 2016, White saw his net worth balloon to $500 million. Meanwhile, Bulger died in prison in 2018 but White’s ‘debt’ remained.
At least now White has the money to pay it and go back to Boston with a free man.