Dana White’s plans to “repair” boxing are lastly beginning to take form.
For years, White has declared that boxing is damaged, saying he meant to swoop in and save the candy science from itself, solely to drag again on his personal makes an attempt as a result of the game was “too damaged.” However a renewed curiosity in shifting into the boxing house by means of TKO and his affiliation with Turki Alalshikh has White now firmly invested in shifting ahead with Zuffa Boxing.
All of it begins this weekend, as White helps promote the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford superfight, happening on Saturday and broadcast reside on Netflix, and after that, White guarantees a full-court press come subsequent 12 months, together with his personal boxing model of Contender Collection that serves as a feeder system to the larger boxing promotion of Turki Alalshikh.
“Mainly, in 2026, I’m going to start out my present, and what I’m going to do is mainly like Contender Collection,” White instructed Vegas PBS. “The perfect will combat one of the best, undefeated guys will combat undefeated guys, and what you’ll do is you’ll care in regards to the first combat of the evening, and never simply the primary occasion. So I’ll construct stars, placed on nice fights, after which these guys will graduate and combat with Sheik Turki.”
For White, the final word purpose is to show boxing into one thing akin to the UFC: a unified fight sports activities league.
“What we did with the UFC is flip the UFC into an NFL, an NBA,” White mentioned. “There’s a league, you reinvest into the game, and different individuals need to spend money on the game, whether or not it’s sponsors or any of those monetary corporations, no matter it could be. That’s what must be achieved with boxing, too, and that’s what I’m going to aim to do.
“Pay attention, there’s no ego or conceitedness once I discuss entering into boxing and attempting to ‘repair it.’ This can be a busted sport.”
Whether or not White will succeed is anybody’s guess. One of many largest blockers to White’s transfer into boxing has been the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which regulates promoters from sure anti-competitive enterprise practices, key amongst them, permitting promoters to regulate title and rankings and restrict monetary transparency. The UFC and mother or father firm TKO are requesting an modification, dubbed the “Ali Revival Act,” which rolls again a few of these rules. That initiative suffered a blow on Tuesday when the California State Athletic Fee withdrew its deliberate assist of the invoice following large backlash throughout a public assembly on the matter.
If the invoice in the end doesn’t move, White might discover it tougher to compete towards extra firmly entrenched boxing promoters like Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren, however the UFC CEO says he’s ready to do exactly that over the following few years.
“Proper now we in all probability have between 60 and 70 fighters underneath contract,” White mentioned. “I believe that the wonderful thing about it’s there’s numerous choices. Eddie Hearn is a good promoter. He’s very profitable and, for my part, he’s a superb man. I like him very a lot. You’ve obtained Frank Warren out within the UK, who could be very profitable and does properly. There’s choices, and we’re all going to should compete, and we’re all going to should attempt to be higher than the opposite man to get one of the best expertise. …
“I compete with the NFL, I compete with the NBA, I compete with large film studios. No matter takes your consideration on Saturday evening is my competitors. So, as I get into boxing, it’s a very totally different world from MMA. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. 26 goes to be my first 12 months in [boxing], so I’ll positively be competing with the Eddie Hearns and the Frank Warrens of the world, however I stay up for it.”
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