Dana White says fighters should build themselves into stars. Now why didn't they think of that?

Surrounded by reporters following Sunday’s UFC Fight Night 124 event in St. Louis, UFC President Dana White found himself confronted by a question about rankings – as in, those curious little numbers next to some fighters’ names, the ones that fighters and fans and matchmakers seem increasingly willing to ignore as they all search for that magic combination of willing combatants.

But if rankings don’t matter, one reporter asked, why not get rid of them? How necessary are they, even, especially in the age of the “money fight”?

White, it turned out, had some thoughts on the subject.

“The only reason there are ‘money fights’ is because of the rankings,” White said. “A guy gets into the top 10, and then a guy breaks into the top five. When a guy breaks into the top five, that’s when everybody is interested in him. And when guys talk about money fights, it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

“You know what’s a money fight? Any fight with Conor McGregor is a money fight. There are certain people. Ronda Rousey – any fight with Ronda Rousey is a money fight.”

For the record, White just named two fighters who are nowhere to be found in the UFC at the moment. For all practical purposes, it is functionally impossible to get a fight with either of them right now, regardless of where you’re ranked.

It’s also worth noting that Rousey, who hasn’t fought in more than a year and seems completely uninterested in doing so, is currently No. 9 in the UFC’s internal rankings. So if you drop her name while arguing that rankings are what determine a fighter’s financial value? Yeah, sorry, but you just undermined your own point.

But White had some advice for those fighters seeking a shortcut to fame and riches via the power of the money fight.

“Build yourself into a star, and you won’t be talking about money fights,” White said. “It’s getting to a point where Conor McGregor has exploded and become so huge that this whole money fight thing came about. And even if you’re not fighting Conor McGregor, you want to be on Conor McGregor’s card. Become a star. Don’t worry about Conor McGregor or fighting on Conor McGregor’s card. Become a star yourself.”

Oh, OK. So they should just become stars. Now why didn’t they think of that?

Maybe because it’s a lot easier said than done. In fact, it’s easier said than understood, since the precise mixture of skill and style and charisma and promotability that results in MMA stardom is tough to define, much less recreate at will. If it weren’t, chances are we’d see more stars.

But then, one thing noticeable absent from White’s recipe for success is the role of the promoter in, you know, promoting. To hear him tell it, this is entirely the fighter’s job. Don’t angle for the most profitable possible matchup. Instead, just get out there and make yourself a star.

Of course, he said this in the same media scrum where he severely criticized Kamaru Usman’s performance and overall standing in a unanimous-decision win over Emil Meek.

In the very recent past, the UFC president has also had similarly strong words for welterweight champ Tyron Woodley, flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson, women’s bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes, former welterweight and middleweight champ Georges St-Pierre…

Yeah, you get the point.

The UFC has precious few stars. White loves to dismiss this concern with a well-rehearsed line about the company’s success in replacing everyone from Chuck Liddell to GSP to Brock Lesnar, but if the marquee fighters were really so replaceable, then we’d probably see them replaced more often.

It tells us something that, when listing off stars who make for a money fight, White couldn’t come up with anyone who’s competed in the UFC in the last year.

And the thing is, the UFC has plenty of talented fighters and interesting personalities. The raw star material is floating around out there, struggling to coalesce into some cohesive form.

If those fighters could get a little help from the company whose job it is to promote them – instead of, say, smacking them down in public the minute they ask for more money or even just decent opportunities – maybe we’d see more stars as a result. Maybe star-building could stand to be more of a team effort. At the very least, maybe it could stand to be less of a battle.

For more on UFC Fight Night 124, check out the UFC Events section of the site.