Dana White locked himself in hotel room two days, didn't sleep or eat after making $360m in UFC sale

Dana White, center, stands between Nate Diaz, left, and Conor McGregor during a UFC 202 mixed martial arts news conference. Photo / AP.

The US$4 billion (NZ$5.5b) sale of the UFC to WME-IMG netted the former owners of the company a windfall of cash and that includes president Dana White - who got totally freaked out.

White owned 9 per cent of the company when the sale was finalised a couple of weeks ago and he's reported to make an estimated US$360 million (NZ$500m) as his part of the UFC now goes to the new owners.

"It doesn't suck," White joked when speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday about the money he made from the sale.

As of now, White hasn't actually seen the cheque from the sale of the UFC land in his bank account but once the accountants and lawyers sign off on the deal, he expects a very large cheque with his name attached to it.

"I got a couple bucks," White said with a laugh. "So what they do is when you do a deal like this, it has to go through a bunch of regulation and once the regulation is done and the thing finally closes, I guess you just get a cheque."

According to White, after the sale was completed the new owners immediately locked him into a new deal to remain with the company after WME-IMG officially took over.

White confirmed that he's inked a five-year deal to remain in place as the UFC president, although from the sound of things he's not going anywhere even after that contract is completed.

"When you do deals like this, I have a five-year deal," White revealed. "It's one of those things, I'm 47 and I love this sport, I love what I do for a living and I would have signed a 55-year deal with these guys, so I'm in."

As much as White enjoys money, he says the deal to sell the UFC to new owners was somewhat bittersweet as he no longer gets to work with his longtime friends and partners in Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta.

There's also something to be said about being a wealthy executive at the UFC and making the kind of life-changing money White just cashed in as part of the sale of the company.

In fact, White says the numbers behind the deal actually ended up with him locked inside a hotel room for a couple of days just trying to wrap his head around everything that just happened.

"I can tell you this and this is the honest-to-God truth - when this deal closed, it bugged me out a little bit," White said. "When you make that kind of money and my partners, I've been with them for 20 years so that's all going to change. I have new partners now.
"I kind of Howard Hughes-ed myself up into a hotel room for a couple of days. I didn't sleep or eat, it kind of freaked me out a little bit."

-News.com.au