UFC president Dana White is one of the busiest people involved in professional sports, but a battle with a rare inner ear disease is making things difficult.
White suffers from Meniere’s disease, a form of nerve damage in the ear that can affect a person’s balance and hearing and it recently caused him to miss his first UFC event since he purchased the UFC with Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta in 2001.
“It is the most horrible thing you could ever go through,” White told Inside MMA in a recent interview.
There is a surgical procedure that can help Meniere’s sufferers and White wants to go under the knife, but his doctors are suggesting they try treating the disease with medication first.
“I’m not a normal patient,” White said. “I’m not some guy who works 9-5 and goes home. I fly all over the world everyday of the week … I’m a different case. I’m lobbying hard for this surgery.”
If White does have the surgery there will be an arduous rehabilitation period that would put him out of commission for up to a month and will force him to miss several more events.
“The surgery isn’t the cure. The surgery, they go in and they basically cut the nerve. So you have to learn to walk again. You have to go through serious rehabilitation. You have to learn how to do everything again. But I’m willing to have that done. I’ll go in, I’ll go hardcore rehab for the next three weeks. I’m a special case, in that the surgery makes sense for me, whereas it might not for other people my age.”
The UFC has two shows this week — one on Friday in New Jersey and one on Saturday in Brazil — and White plans on being at both. Fights from both cards can be seen live on Sportsnet.
