Dana White reveals major deal with Mark Zuckerberg’s trillion-dollar tech company

Dana White signs 'game-changing' partnership with Meta, sends UFC rankings duties to AI-obsessed Mark Zuckerberg, and more.

Dana White reveals major deal with Mark Zuckerberg’s trillion-dollar tech company

Dana White teases new UFC ranking with a Mark Zuckerberg Meta partnership (Source: X)

The current UFC rankings system will soon be a relic, and it looks like UFC CEO Dana White got what he wished for. As part of an announcement on Wednesday regarding a broader partnership with Meta, White teased the moving cogs for a overhaul by Mark Zuckerberg’s company.

Despite a longstanding friendship with Trump administration and D.O.G.E. head Elon Musk, the other guy got it. The duties now go to an AI-obsessed Mark Zuckerberg. The long-term partnership will take a deep dive into Meta AI, Meta Glasses, Meta Quest, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads for the didactics. Meta is also to become the UFC’s official AI glasses partner. Dana White detailed the effort to change UFC rankings, recently.

I’ve had a lot of great partners over the years that have helped us grow this sport, but Mark and his team at Meta are going to do things that will blow away UFC fans, …We’ve already started to work on some innovations with Meta around a new fighter rankings system that will debut later this year — Thank God…

Dana White in an IG post  (@danawhite)
YouTube video

Over the past year, Dana White has lashed back against tumultuous UFC rankings quite a few times. UFC 205-pounder Khalil Rountree Jr. entered and stayed as No. #8 in the UFC Athlete Rankings. That was despite a gritty war with Alex Pereira in a PPV title fight. Renato Moicano didn’t get a major bump despite his violent second-round doctor stoppage TKO win at UFC Paris in 2024.

UFC ranking and voting duties have always gone to panel media members that White often ranted upon. It has been a tradition since February 2013. These include HON Honolulu, MMA Oddsbreaker, CFMU 93.3, Bursprak.se, FightNews, MMA Soldier, MMA NYTT, and Inside Fighting Radio.

White already kept threatening AI rankings for a while. Soon after, back in October (post-Noche UFC), Dana White urged meeting Zuckerberg and had a ‘strong’ feeling of change. UFC litigation and media crew did pony up with artificial intelligence (AI) brand-partnership with IBM and its “watsonx” data platform. Now, with a partnership with Meta, the change in engine becomes that much more official.

Mark Zuckerberg all-in for partnership and rank overhaul

Instead of panel voters, the UFC is morphing to AI technology to compile its pound-for-pound rankings with Meta. Threads, a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s “X”, is also soon to become an official media partner of UFC.

Mark Zuckerberg is hyped for his role with UFC
Mark Zuckerberg is hyped for his role with UFC (Source: X)

In the past year, Dana White has clowned on know-nothing MMA media members to fix the rankings. He even went off the rails when ‘absolute best’ pound-for-pound name Jon Jones was stagnant and two others were grazing past his status in the weekly updates.

The BJJ blue belt was never just a figurehead but an actual lover of combat sports. Zuckerberg once even (allegedly) shut down the APEX just for a private UFC Fight Night viewing! Things switched up when Mark Zuckerberg enlisted and had White board the company as its board member. Now, with the partnership with Meta, the correlation takes a new step.

I love this sport and I’m looking forward to working with the UFC to let fans experience it in new ways…

Mark Zuckerberg in a media release

A date for the Meta takeover and a UFC-Meta partnership are not yet official, but International Fight Week looks like a prime spot. The IFW Fest kicks off on June 26th in Las Vegas with UFC X inbound and HOF in tow. The event wraps up with the UFC 317 PPV card on June 28th at the fan-favorite T-Mobile spot.

UFC, part of TKO Group Holdings, already enlisted UFC’s Official Global AI Partner for its live play-by-play grind, including UFC FIGHT PASS®. IBM’s insight engine has been posting AI predicitions on the promotions social media (Whatsapp/Thread) channels for a a while. As such, this could be a valuable step in a positive direction.

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