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While American staples like football, baseball, and basketball remain the most popular sports, mixed martial arts (MMA) has become the nation's guiltiest pleasure. With MMA raking in the dough at ticket stands and Pay-Per-View, it's clear that the sport is poised to become America's next big thing. At the forefront of the mixed martial arts revolution is Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) organization. With the UFC, White aims to make MMA one of the biggest sports in the world. White sits down with Bridgez to share his plans for the burgeoning sport in his own words.

"[One of the biggest misconceptions about mixed martial arts is] that these guys are barbarians, animals [or] guys who just rolled in off a bar stool, and they aren't real athletes. These guys are the most well-rounded athletes you'll ever see in your life. Think about how hard is to become a professional boxer and be so good at it that you can fight competitively or be the best in the world. These guys have to be good in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling and Jujutsu and on top of that they have to do their strength training and their cardio. These guys are the best conditioned athletes in the world and most of them are good guys.

There's a whole bunch of fighters that are good and are new to the sport, but the ones that stick out the most to me are Spencer "The King" Fisher, Frankie Edgar, Karo Parisyan, Thiago Silva, Joe Lauzon, Jason Reinhardt who's record is 18-0, and the two guys who are going to catapult themselves in this sport are Michael Bisping and Rashad Evans. The sport is growing and getting bigger, more of those guys get recognized now when they go out in public, they've become superstars.

[In May 2007, Roger Huerta appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and] it was awesome for the UFC to finally be on a major publication cover like SI. And the reason he got the cover is because Sports Illustrated showed up that night and he put an amazing fight they were compelled, they got a great shot of him and he got the cover, he deserves it, he is a good kid. If you look at his past and what's happened to him growing up, what I respect about that, is that there is a lot of people that [say,] ‘Oh my dad wasn't there, my mom didn't do this,' and everybody likes to bitch about how they were brought up. It's the past, there is nothing you can do about your past; it is what it is. This kid doesn't focus on that, he moves forward and he's changed his life, he made a difference in his life. You can't sit around in a couch crying about how bad your childhood was, you have to go out and do something about it, and this kid did. I respect him, he is a warrior.

There are a lot people trying to get into [mixed martial arts] because they think there is a lot of money. I'm flattered that they think we make it look that easy. But as far as the musicians and Hollywood all coming after the guys, I think it's awesome, they deserve it. When you talk about the baddest men on the planet, [and] who are the best fighters in the world, it's these guys. This is real fighting. The beauty is for us that there is no doubt about it, mixed martial arts [and] the UFC is the most exciting combat sport in the world, and [people] love fights, so I think they going to love the UFC."