Notorious crime boss Whitey Bulger, who apparently ran Dana White out of Boston, dies in prison

By Christopher Taylor - October 31, 2018

Infamous Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, who allegedly ran UFC President Dana White out of town in 1995, was found dead in a federal prison on Tuesday.

Dana White, Jon Jones

NBC News was first to report Bulger’s passing, he was 89.

FBI officials are currently investigating the death, which occurred just a day after his transfer to the maximum security West Virginia facility.

“He lived violently and he apparently died violently,” Dick Lehr, author of “Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss” told CNN. “It marks the full circle of a terrible life.”

Bulger had been on the run from federal authorities for more than sixteen years before his eventual high-profile arrest in 2011.

“Whitey” was sentenced in November 2013, where he received two life terms plus five years as the mastermind of a criminal enterprise that, in the words of a federal judge, committed “unfathomable” acts that terrorized the city of Boston.

A federal jury convicted Bulger of 31 counts, including racketeering, extortion, money laundering, drug dealing and weapons possession. The jury found him culpable in 11 killings which spanned 1973 through 1985.

James Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang terrorized the streets of South Boston for many years.

The crime boss was recently made famous in 2015, this after his life story was made into a blockbuster movie “Black Mass”. Bulger was played by Hollywood superstar Johnny Depp in the film.

Amazingly the Ultimate Fighting Championship may have never come to fruition if it were not for the Boston crime boss, Whitey Bulger.

The story goes like this, UFC President Dana White, who at the time (1995) had no connection to MMA, was threatened by Kevin Weeks while teaching a class at a boxing gym. Weeks, who was “Whitey” Bulger’s right-hand man, told Dana White that he owed him more money. After receiving a follow-up “collection call”, Dana White would soon flee Boston for Las Vegas.

“I didn’t pay him,” White told FS1’s The Herd in 2015. “This went on for a while, and one day, I was at my place and I got a call and they said, ‘You owe us the money tomorrow by 1 p.m. I literally hung up the phone, picked up the phone and called Delta and bought a ticket to Vegas.”

That decision paid off very well for White, as soon after landing in Vegas, Dana connected with childhood friends Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta.

As they say in the movies, the rest is history.


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Dana White UFC