After the loss of his bull Twisted Steel, UFC’s Dana White returns to the arena with Playmate—one of the toughest rides in PBR.
ARLINGTON, Texas — The man who built an empire on blood, sweat, and knockouts is now betting on hooves and horns.
Dana White, UFC president and mixed martial arts mogul, is stepping into a new kind of cage—one fenced by steel and dirt.
His prized bull, Dana White’s Playmate, is set to buck at the PBR World Finals at AT&T Stadium this weekend. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know this isn’t some celebrity hobby. It’s personal.
“I like the nasty ones, I like the mean ones,” White said, his trademark smirk nearly audible. “I like the ones that are obviously tough to ride.”
Playmate has only been covered for a full eight seconds once—a stat that makes bull riders respect him and audiences remember him. That’s exactly what White wants: tough, memorable, and a little dangerous.
“Just like fighting, you got to be a little crazy to want to do it, too,” he said.
White’s connection to PBR isn’t recent—it started nearly a decade ago, in 2016, when he climbed onto a bull himself for an internet show. It wasn’t pretty.
“It was obviously a one-and-done for me,” he said, laughing. “A few months after that, I bought my first bull.”
Since then, the man who turned MMA into a household acronym has quietly been building his herd—and his narrative—inside another combat sport. “The bull business is fun for me,” he said.
“The riders are some of the toughest dudes on the planet,” White said. “There are so many different things that can go wrong, and you can die or get seriously injured in the PBR.”
Ask him who’s tougher—bull riders or UFC fighters—and he doesn’t blink. “I think it’s the same, but different,” he said. “You know what I mean?”
To White, both sports are driven by high stakes and human drama. “Great storylines. I love that. Just like fighting,” he said. “The bulls themselves are part of the story, and then the rider is part of the story.”
If White had to pick a fighter to compare to Playmate: “I guess, Alex Pereira, you know, mean, looking scary, and then backs it up.”
The cross-pollination of UFC and PBR may feel unexpected to some, but if you’ve followed White long enough, it fits. He’s made a career of elevating the overlooked, turning niche violence into a global spectacle.
White’s image has grown outside the UFC lately. He’s been a vocal supporter and personal friend of President Donald Trump, who has long been a UFC ally. The two share a rapport that stretches from campaign trails to cage-side seats.
The president attended several major fights in the months leading up to his re-election in 2024. Some politicos say it helped Trump connect with male voters even more.
“I’m not very political. I’m friends with President Trump,” White said. “As far as business goes, I only want to be in business with people I’m aligned with anyway, whether that be sponsors or anybody else. So, yeah, I’ve navigated pretty well through all the BS.”
“How do you not have a former or sitting president at one of your events?” White said.
Despite today’s political fault lines, White’s alignment hasn’t dented his business. If anything, it’s drawn even more eyes to the brand.
But it hasn’t been all victory laps. Recently, White lost one of his bulls, Twisted Steel—a fan favorite with a name that sounded more like a UFC fighter than a rodeo animal. Now, Playmate takes center stage, and White is all in: this isn’t some pivot. It’s a new round.