There were days around the Las Vegas offices of UFC that it appeared event No. 60 was going to be an impossibility. Forget about a UFC 100. Dana White and the Fertittas were four years into running the promotion and Lorenzo Fertitta had hit the wall. There was little media coverage or support from venues outside of Las Vegas. The costs of running and promoting the events put the Fertittas $44 million in the hole by 2004.

"I’m telling you the first four or five years of this thing I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy," White told the Las Vegas Sun. "It was miserable, it was harder than I could ever image, or ever explain to you."

White was getting trashed by the Fertittas' wealthy friends:

"We were looked down upon and we were the red-headed stepchild of Zuffa — 'Oh God, this thing is never going to work. They're burning all the guy's money. This was a horrible idea. They listened to Dana and all this [expletive],'" White told the Canadian Press.

Lorenzo Fertitta finally hit the wall in the middle of 2004:

"The business was building. It wasn't building at a pace where you're going to get your $44 million back, you know what I mean. That's crazy big money. And Lorenzo called me one day when I was in the office and he said 'Dana, I can't do this anymore, man. I can't continue to blow all my money and my brother's money on this thing. I've got to get out of this, man," said White. "Get out on the streets and see what you can do. See how much money you can raise.'"

White said he hustled that day making phone calls trying to drum up some additional money:

"He called me back around 8 o'clock at night and he said 'What's up.' And I said I know for a fact, I can get you $4 million, maybe six, maybe seven, I don't know but four for sure. And he was silent at the other end of the phone and he says 'OK., I'll call you tomorrow.' So that night, I actually told (chief operating officer) Kirk Hendrich, I said 'Dude it's over, man. It is over and we gave it a shot and whatever.'"

Fertitta called the next morning and told White to keep it going. They had to dump more money into to get bankroll the first season of The Ultimate Fighter and that's when things took off. It's pretty amazing progress in just over four years. White told the Las Vegas Review-Journal they were offered $1.2 billion for the company last year.

Neil Davidson's story on the early days is a good read. Make sure you check out the part where White talks about having to filter through lots of people to find the right mix as far as his staff.