Dana White to Address Oxford Union Society

The Associated Press is reporting that UFC President Dana White will address the Oxford Union Society Debate Club this October while in London, England to promote UFC 120.

Malcolm X has spoken there. So have Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa.

 

And now Dana White will take the podium.

 

The UFC president will join a star-studded list when he addresses the famed Oxford Union Society on Oct. 13.

 

The 187-year-old society has been known for its ties to the upper tiers of politics, and past speakers include Sir Winston Churchill, Robert Kennedy and Yasser Arafat. The late Benazir Bhutto was once club president when she was a student, long before she was prime minister of Pakistan.

 

But sports figures have also won invitations. Recent speakers include soccer’s Diego Maradona, cricket’s Graham Gooch and Geoffrey Boycott, rower Steve Redgrave and boxer Chris Eubank.

Payout Perspective:

Dana White has become quite the highly sought-after speaking commodity as of late. In May, White was invited to attend the prestigious Microsoft CEO Summit and rub shoulders with the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and nearly 200 of the most important business leaders in the world. Oxford will now present an opportunity for White to address some of the world’s future business leaders.

The passion and energy with which White speaks may have won over the Summit crowd, but I’ll caution the same approach may not work at Oxford. The debate club will not go easy on White, and I fear he’ll need more than his standard clichés — e.g., the NASCAR analogy or “we run to, not from, regulation” — to survive the encounter.

Best of luck to him!