Last night on Carson's Corner, Rizin Fighting Federation Senior Vice President Jerry Millen dropped by to discuss his career in chronological order, including some of the criticism he has faced from notable MMA figures Bas Rutten, Stephan Quadros, Maura Ranallo and Dana White. Millen did not shy away from giving his unvarnished opinion on each person. Below is the transcript of some of his responses:


Bas Rutten

Carson: One of the things that I found strange, and which people actually seized on, was the fact that Bas seemed to be criticizing you for having a different work name and birth name. Maybe I’m speaking as an outsider here, because I’ve never been a “Gary” or a “Jerry,” but is there a big difference between those names? It seems like a pretty minor change. What’s the difference, from your perspective?

Millen: Well, here’s what’s funny about that, coming from a guy whose name is Sebastian-really. You really should be careful of what you say…he’s a bitter old man; and you know I take it with a grain of salt, and I still look back on it, and we had some great times over there, but unfortunately we had to let him go and when you let somebody go, there never happy about it, and he chose to air dirty laundry; and believe me when I tell you, I have  a ton of dirty laundry that I’ve never aired, but they all know what the dirty laundry is...

Stephan Quadros

Carson: My understanding is that they started out doing after-the-fact commentary overdubs on Pride events that had already happened, and that they were basically watching fights they knew the results of together in a room somewhere.

Because of that, I think their announcing always had a kind of informal tone to it. I can see some people thinking that it didn’t sound as professional as a sports broadcast should be, but fans in the United States seemed to really like the Bas and Quadros team.

Quadros would sometimes misspeak, or employ malapropisms, but that’s also true of the UFC’s Mike Goldberg, and I think both of them are appreciated by the fans – although it did take a bit longer for Goldberg to get there.

What did you think of Quadros as an announcer when you came in? 


Millen: You know, honestly, he was very arrogant, you know, I’m not gonna lie.. they were going to fire him and replace him, but I said no, let’s keep him and see how he is. And, you know, right from the beginning, when I came in I could tell that there wasn’t a lot of structure, so a typical thing is, you walk in and we got 20 fighters to interview- he came into the room and was like, I’m going to interview this guy, this guy, and took 15 fighters and gave Bas 5, and I’m like, no, no, no, no. This is going to be equal. Stephan you’ll take these 10, Bas you’ll take these 10. He didn’t enjoy this much because I came in and changed things. There was definitely an air of arrogance about it; and the Japanese didn’t like him at the time. That’s why I was brought in…he still blames me for his firing to this day, but I had nothing to do with it. 

Carson: On a personal level, I know Quadros has a lot of diverse and eclectic interests, and some people find his thinking a bit too abstract and even confusing when they meet him in person. [laugh]

But he seems like an intelligent guy, someone with a valuable perspective and a good drummer as well. Was there any truth to the talk that you and Quadros didn’t get along, or that you specifically didn’t like him as a person?

Millen: No, he thinks that because right after I came in he was let go, and you know, I didn’t go out and buddy up with him after the first event…but, he felt that he was fired because of him, that couldn’t be further from the truth. You know, I could have worked with Stephen. I’ve got no problem with Stephen today. I’ve never had any beef with him at all… they let him go, but it’s easy to blame me because I was the new guy. I’m not losing any sleep on who likes me and who doesn’t like me…my bosses didn’t like him, that what I was brought in.

Mauro Ranallo

Carson: Am I right in saying it was Bas who recommended Mauro to the Pride executives and convinced them to hire him?

Millen: Oh yes! Oh yes! They were buddies. We did a conference call and he recommended Mauro and I said, let’s try him out…and it worked out for a while, but when Mauro’s off his meds, he definitely has some issues, so I can leave that at that. I’m not going to make fun of some who has psychiatric problems, but when you take some with psychiatric problems and take them to another country and have to spend weeks at a time with them and they don’t take their medications, there’s going to be problems… Mauro’s mauro. He’s jumped from a lot of jobs and he’s talked a lot of shit about me, and that’s fine… there’s a lot things I can say about him that I just keep to myself because I’m not going to air his personal laundry…I wish him all the best…I think he’s where he belongs now, pro wrestling, but I hear things aren’t that peachy there him, I hear Vince McMahan is not a huge fan. We’ll see how long he lasts at WWE. 

Dana White

Carson: You and Dana White famously butted heads long before Pride was up for sale.


Millen: Me and Dana were cool. We were fine when Dana was 25 lbs soaking wet, had a little bit of hair and some snagly teeth and wasn’t a Rockstar, he was cool to everybody, and ask anybody that knew him back then. Even Randy and him were friends. Him and Tito were friends. We were all cool. Dana and Lorenzo would come to Pride all the time and watch how we did our shows… but as more money came in, he started getting bigger. The head got bigger… I just don’t think he respects anybody. Finally now his fighters- some of his fighters have enough power to stand up…a lot of fighters are giving him pushback….he’s got 25 cars and all this money. He’s a Rockstar. That’s why he wants to stay with the UFC. Where else is he going to go? He’s used to being the man and a Rockstar. If he leaves there he’s just going to be another rich guy.

Carson: It’s ironic because he claims he doesn’t care about the money. He claims that he’s not for material things. This guy probably has 3, 400 million dollars, while his fighters are languishing in poverty…

Millen: You can’t blame anybody for success. If you can make a lot of money, that’s great. But, my biggest problem with that is, if you don’t care about the money, then why do you do interviews and talk about I have 25 cars, I have so many I can’t even drive ‘em. Why do say I spent $50,000 to put snow on my driveway. Why do you do a tour of your office and say look at this sabre tooth tiger skull on my desk… I paid $125,000 for this. That is disrespectful to the fighters. You got a guy that walks in for a $1000 and $1000, try to feed his family. You know he’s losing money. Got to have a job. Trying to train. And you’re going to go on television or whatever and brag about all the money you make, but you got this kid walking in for a $1000 and a $1000. That’s just bullshit to me….

Carson: I’d be willing to bet if you poll the UFC fighters on the roster anonymously a majority of fighters would have a negative opinion on Dana White.

Millen: 100%. They all pull me aside when I see them… most of them can’t speak up. Some are speaking up now because they have a little bit more power. They still have to be careful. Not many of them can have a voice, but that’s why it’s nice to see a guy like Connor McGregor because the Connor McGregor thing has kind of backfired in the sense that, he puts asses in seats and he sells PPVs, but if you look in the beginning of Connor’s career, him and Dana White are hanging out, Dana lets him drive his cars…but unfortunately, Connor became a big star and I think they thought they can control him, and I think it’s backfired a little bit.

Bob Carson