PUEBLO, Colo. – When you hear the name Dana White, you think, of course, of the UFC, where he is president and CEO.

But on the web series Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight, White toured the country as he scouted new UFC talent and tried his hand at a few new activities in the process.

In 2016, he and his crew filmed an episode in Houston where White attempted to ride a bull.

Key word: attempted.

“I rode like three seconds,” White joked at a press conference at UFC headquarters this past weekend. “An ugly, ugly three seconds.”

White spoke with a bull pen erected not far away, as the PBR was on hand with a bull with White’s name on it: Dana White’s Twisted Steel.

That ill-fated first (and only) bull ride got him hooked on the bull business – no pun intended.

“I fell in love with the sport, and I started buying bulls back in 2016 in hopes to get into the PBR,” White said. “The first bull I ever owned, his name was F-Bomb. He’s retired now, he’s out. My other bulls are in the Velocity Tour. And then this is my first bull to ever make it to the big show of the PBR.”

Twisted Steel is building quite the career for himself in the PBR. In 31 outs at all levels of competition, he’s been ridden just twice for a buckoff percentage of 94%. He was last ridden by Braidy Randolph at the 2023 PBR World Finals in May, remaining unridden in three Challenger Series outs and four PBR Camping World Team Series outs since then.

In Teams competition this year, no rider has lasted longer than 3.81 seconds aboard Twisted Steel, who has the ornery temperament of one of White’s UFC fighters.

Twisted Steel will be bucking this weekend at the 2023 PBR Camping World Teams Championship in Las Vegas, but he’ll also be the star of the show before that. The YETI Bull Cam Live will be streaming all weekend directly from Twisted Steel’s pen beginning on Thursday, Oct. 19 at 4 p.m. PT. Fans can tune in all weekend on the PBR’s YouTube channel to see what the best bulls in the business get up to behind the scenes of the sport’s biggest stage.

Unfortunately, White is unable to be in attendance to see his prized bovine buck.

“Hopefully, this guy becomes big,” he said. “And, of course, my first bull to make it into the PBR, it’s the same exact weekend as Abu Dhabi fight, so I can’t even be here for it. But I’m hoping he does well.”

White has a background as an amateur boxer, and he says his partnership with stock contractor Dennis Davis on Twisted Steel – “partner means I put up the money and he does all the work,” he joked –reminds him of the boxing world.

“If you think back in the boxing days, all these hedge fund guys, these business guys, used to back boxers to see if the boxer could make it up and win a world title,” White said. “And once he won a world title, that’s how everybody got their money back, back in the days. Michael Moorer was backed by a bunch of finance guys, and a lot of other fighters. The bull business is sort of like that.”

The president of the UFC since 2001, White says he sees plenty of similarities between bull riding and fighting.

“I think the reason that I fell in love with (bull riding) is because the mentality is much like fighting,” White said. “To step into a cage in front of the whole world and test yourself against somebody that’s trained and is as good as you are is crazy and scary. Then, to get into that rack and slide in on a bull – they strap your hand in, you’ve got to (signal) to tell them to open the (chute). I said, ‘I don’t know if I would do it. I don’t know if I would actually do it.’ Oh, you’ll do it, because the bull is smashing your legs into the side of the rails, and it’s like, the ride can’t be worse than what’s happening inside here! The mental toughness and the absolute craziness you have to have in you to be a bull rider is just next level.”

White’s other bulls include Sour Diesel, Stank Face and White Thunder, who have yet to have their opportunities at the elite level. He hopes to eventually have more success at the Unleash The Beast and Teams level, but now, he’s having fun watching Twisted Steel do his thing.

“I enjoy it. I like being in the bull business, and I finally have one in the PBR,” White said. “I think this is where it starts to get really exciting. So if he can do something, it’ll be fun.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media