UFC boss Dana White rules out entering ‘broken’ boxing world as sport is a ‘nightmare to try to fix’
UFC supremo Dana White has seeming permanently shelved plans to make inroads into boxing.
The veteran promoter set his sights on making waves in the sport after co-promoting Conor McGregor's blockbuster showdown with Floyd Mayweather in August 2017.
White went on to set up Zuffa Boxing in 2019 but has appeared to shelve his plans to restructure the sport five years after insisting he was "getting into boxing, 100 per cent.";
During an appearance on White said: “Every time I try to think about doing something with boxing, I go, ‘Why would I want to do this to myself?’
“You know what I mean? Why would I even want to dive into this nightmare?
"That’s why I haven’t really done anything. It’s a broken business that is an absolute nightmare to try to fix.”
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Chief among White's gripes with the sport is promoters' failure to put on super-fights.
During an appearance on The Pivot Podcast, White said: “There’s always gonna be head butting.
“Do you make enough money? Do you? I want to meet that guy that goes, ‘Oh, I’m good. I make plenty of money. I don’t need another dime.’
"You’re never going to meet that guy. It’s never going to happen. Everybody wants more money.
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"And one of the big problems with boxing too is that all those f****** guys are overpaid, and every time they put on a fight, it’s a going-out-of-business sale.
"We’re just trying to get as much f****** money as we can from you guys, and then we’re out of here. We’ll see you in three years."
White believes the recent influx of freakshow fights in the sport in recent years is down to promoters not being able to connect with younger fans.
In December 2020, he said: “The thing has been such a spiral, nose dive for so long, and what they haven’t done, is they haven’t done got any of that young generation, any of that younger crowd.
“But it’d be crazy to say that these type of fights haven’t been popular anyway.
"We were just talking the other day about the Tonya Harding fight when she fought, these celebrity fights that they were doing.
"I think people are always going to be interested in that type of stuff.”
He added: "It’s gonna require so much time, money, and the whole thing needs to be rebuilt and restructured.
"There’s always gonna be fights that’ll pop up that’ll make money, you know.
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"But when you’re in a situation where, you know, this Mayweather [Paul] fight does more buys than Fury vs Wilder or, you know, some of these legitimate big fights, it’s pretty scary.”
The UFC will resume pay-per-view action next weekend in Singapore, with a light-heavyweight title fight between champion Glover Teixeira and Jiri Prochazka headlining UFC 274.