Sherdog.com: Who is putting down money to come see your shows?
Cavallaro: It's funny because we need the hardcore mixed martial arts fans. We need that. We have to have a base of guys that read Sherdog, guys that go to all the fights. That's great. We definitely need to have them. I love them. I'm one of those guys; I fall into that category. But we need to get outside of that also and capture the people that may know who Chuck Liddell (Pictures) is and may see Rampage on TV, but they haven't actually been to a fight before. It's getting the word out to those people and kind of capturing their imagination. People that have never been to the fights, you don't know what you're missing until you go. I've been going to the fights since I was a little kid. My dad used to bring me. It's been a mainstay in my life. You know, boxing, I watch sumo, I watch everything. Anything to do with fighting, wrestling, I watch it all. When you go live, it strikes something primal in everybody and it's just such a cool experience.

I have a technology background and when I started this, there was a group of people that came to the fights just to support me, guys I had done business with over the years. Those guys come to every fight, and the good thing is those are the guys that buy the expensive tickets. Those are the guys who have the money, who typically wouldn't go to a fight. Almost in the beginning, they're buying a night out. They're buying a night away from their lives. They're buying a night out with the boys for a few beers. And then they come in and see the fights, and they're hooked.

Sherdog.com: Do you think there's anything the New England MMA scene lacks right now?
Cavallaro: You know, regulation. But that sounds like it's coming pretty quick here. I'm a firm believer -- I think the boxing commission should be involved in it. I'm excited to have them involved. We need bigger venues. Part of the thing that will help that grow is when the UFC does come here. Then you're going to get more and more of a fan base. Every show we do, we get a bigger and bigger database. Whether we do bigger venues also, or whether we do more shows, I don't know how that will work. The venue we're in I really like. It's got a cool feel to it. I think every seat in the house is good, it's easy to get to, there's free parking. Those things are key. What I'd like to do is probably more shows at that venue. Someday I would love to fill up the [Boston Garden]. I really would. That's a dream of mine.

Sherdog.com: You're the manager for fighters like Kenny Florian (Pictures), Marcus Davis (Pictures) and Drew Fickett (Pictures). What's going on with them right now?
Cavallaro: Drew I'm actually not managing anymore. We worked together for his whole UFC career. And I love Drew; I think he's one of the best 170 guys in the world. Our contract was up. I was starting the promotion, I was crazy busy and we didn't sit down and renegotiate. I love Drew though. He's a good guy. I think he's one of the best fighters in his division. He's actually talking about going to 155, which would be incredible. That's going to be a tough cut for him. If he goes to 55, he's going to be a monster because he's a big kid.

Kenny obviously has a big fight in August with Roger Huerta (Pictures), which is incredible. Roger Huerta's a tremendous fighter. I think it's going to be real interesting to see whether Kenny can do what he's done with everybody else and win that fight. I think he can. I think it's a good fight for him. Hopefully the winner of that gets a title shot. I think Kenny's right in that position. I think he can beat just about anybody. I don't think there's anybody that he can't beat. I really don't. Kenny's a tremendous, well-rounded fighter. He's got every tool that you need. He's one of my favorite guys to watch.

Marcus, obviously, that was a heartbreaking loss with Mike Swick (Pictures). Mike's a tremendous fighter, and he did a great job and did exactly what he needed to do. Marcus has got a shoulder injury and he's going to have some surgery on that and then we're going to come back and see what the next step is. I know he wants a rematch.

I work with guys that I like the style of fighting and guys that I like, guys that I'm friends with. I don't do this as a business. I don't have 30 guys fighting for me. I take it seriously. But I do it more because I enjoy it and I think I have good relationships that I can leverage to get these guys the best deals that they can get.

Sherdog.com: Of course you've got a history with Dana White and known him for years and years. How did you come to know him?
Cavallaro: Me and Dana worked together 20 years ago, and we've been buddies since way before he got involved in the UFC. He's one of my closest friends. We worked at a hotel together in Boston. We were in the same department; we were in the guest services department. We worked front of the line, front of the house. It was fun. It was a good job. I wouldn't want to do it again, but it was fun.

I will tell you something funny. When Dana was there, he told me he was going to leave. And at the time we were probably making $1,500 a week cash. This is 20 years ago, 15 years ago. When he was leaving I said to him, "What the hell are you going to do? Where are you going to go?" And he said, "I want to get more involved in the fights." We had always both been involved in the fights. Dana had a gym over in Southie he was doing with Peter Welch. They were working with kids over at the Muni [municipal building] over there in South Boston. It was like a police athletic league type deal. He wanted to do it. I thought he was crazy. I said, "You're going to walk away from all this money?" He did what he wanted. He did what he wanted back then, so ….

Sherdog.com: He was a boxing guy, through and through. MMA wasn't on the scene at the time.
Cavallaro: We were both big, big boxing fans. I'm still a huge boxing fan. Dana's still a big boxing fan. We used to go to every fight in Vegas together. I would fly out to Vegas all the time. We used to go and see everybody. We saw De La Hoya a bunch of times. We saw Pernell Whitaker. I went to Holyfield-Tyson. He got married that weekend. He had to go on his honeymoon and he had to miss the Tyson-Holyfield fight. He says he was on a plane, they were flying to Hawaii and the pilot came on and everybody was sleeping on the plane. And the pilot came on like in a whisper and said, "I don't know if anybody cares, but Evander Holyfield just knocked out Mike Tyson." And he almost jumped out of his seat.

Sherdog.com: Have you learned anything from Dana?
Cavallaro: I've learned a ton from him. Dana's a real driven guy. Like I said, back then he knew what he wanted to do. I don't know whether he had a path of how he wanted to get there. I don't think if you asked him back then when he was leaving the hotel where he was going to wind up exactly, that he could have told you where he would go. But he knew what he wanted to do.

One of the things in my life is I've always procrastinated. I want to see a plan. I want to see a path to how we're going to get to where we want to go. And that's not always the way to do it. Sometimes you've just got to get up and say, "I'm just going to do it." I left selling technology to do this and just took a shot on it. Obviously, the road was paved and it was starting to be successful. But there was a long time here where we weren't sure what was going to happen. I'm still not sure what's going to happen. Every day I get up, I think about the job that I used to have, and the benefits and the unlimited expense account and all the things that I used to have as a perk when I worked at Sun Microsystems. And I go: Am I doing the right thing here? I guess that's part of the fun. It's part of the fun of trying to build something, build something on your own.