The man behind the Ultimate Fighting Championship talks about broken arms, the killer instinct and why he doesn't want his kids to be fighters

Q1 Playboy: Nine years ago the Ultimate Fighting Championship was blacklisted from television. Now your reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, is wrapping up its third season on Spike. How did you turn it around?

Dana White: We always knew we needed to get on television, but television wasn't ready for the UFC. The Ultimate Fighter was our Trojan horse. We got on TV and suddenly people were watching mixed martial arts without realizing they were watching it, because they got caught up in the story lines. You also get to learn about the characters and see that these guys aren't a bunch of fucking gorillas who just rolled in off a bar stool. You can see how hard they train and that they have real lives and families.

Q2 Playboy: The 16 contestants on The Ultimate Fighter live together and aren't allowed to read, watch TV or listen to music. Why?

White: It's not good television. You don't want to tune in and see these idiots sitting around watching TV for eight hours or reading books. It's not easy. It starts to drive them crazy. Imagine me and you in a house together every day, training against each other and knowing that eventually we have to fight each other. These guys start to get on one another's fucking nerves. They've got 15 roommates, and the house is a mess because no one does the dishes. All these things build up.

Q3 Playboy: If you were a UFC fighter, what would you use for your intro music?

White: That's a tough one. I live vicariously through these guys because I pick all the intro music. There's a couple I would use. "For Those About to Rock" by AC/DC. We've been playing around with it and the lights. And DMX is perfect to walk out to. Mike Tyson has walked out to that. That's one of the beautiful things Tyson brought to boxing. There was nothing like sitting there waiting for Tyson to walk out. We would say, "Can you imagine being that fucking guy in the ring right now, waiting for Tyson to come out and knock his fucking head into the ninth row?"

White: He would get destroyed. I know it. He's been getting destroyed in boxing lately. I'm not trying to slam Mike Tyson, because I'm still a huge fan. I like real fighters. Guys who are real fighters are born with something other people don't have. You either have it or you don't. It's that ability to cash in all your chips. You put them all on the table and say, "This thing is either going to work for me or not," and you go at it and you're aggressive.