UFC owners pump the brakes on going ‘guns blazing’ into boxing
Dana White has long talked about getting involved in the sport of boxing but the owners at the UFC aren’t ready to commit to anything just yet.
Back in September, White commented that he was finally ready to dive head first into boxing with plans to start making some major announcements about his commitment to the sport in early 2025. White has already been backing undefeated Irish prospect Callum Walsh but he made it clear that a bigger investment into boxing was coming soon.
“People have been talking about the demise of boxing for 30 years, and we’re still here talking about boxing right now,” White said at the time. “I have always had an idea of how I thought it should be done. I don’t know if that’s possible, but we’re going to find out. I’m coming in guns blazing.”
Now White’s interpretation of “guns blazing” might be a little different than what the UFC owners at TKO Group Holdings have in mind when it comes to boxing.
On Wednesday during a quarterly earnings call, TKO Group Holdings president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro addressed White’s comments about getting involved in boxing sooner rather than later.
“First of all, some off the cuff comments from Dana White do not translate into a strategy that we’re communicating to the street,” Shapiro said. “Dana says a lot of things and has a lot of passions and that’s why we love him. He’s also the best promoter the sport of MMA and frankly if it was boxing has or will ever see.
“What I can tell you is boxing at its best is confused and fragmented. At its worst, it’s broken. We think the sport presents an interesting growth opportunity for us. Dana White, and I should mention [WWE president] Nick Khan, have deep expertise and longstanding relationships in what they call the sweet science, otherwise known as boxing. If we were to get involved in boxing, we would expect to do so in an organic way, not [mergers and acquisitions] way. So i.e. we’re not writing a check. If we launched the vertical at any time, we kind of see it as doing it with a partner that would fund it and pay us to operate.”
What that boils down to is TKO won’t be making any major financial investments into boxing any time soon.
Now, it’s entirely possible that White has plans to get into boxing in the same way he tackled slap fighting with the launch of Power Slap — an organization that counts TKO CEO Ari Emanuel as an investor — but the promotion isn’t directly tied to TKO Group Holdings.
Perhaps that changes in the future but for now TKO remains in wait-and-see mode when it comes to potentially getting involved in boxing in addition to the organization’s main focus with MMA through UFC and professional wrestling with WWE.
“Nothing to announce today but this is one area we’re going to continue to explore,” Shapiro said. “We’ve talked about a dearth of leagues that are out there. Obviously, we’re acquiring [Professional Bull Riders], there’s not much else. We don’t necessarily need to add anything to our model but boxing is ripe for a fix.
“We’re blessed to have two experts in the field and if an opportunity presents itself or we can chase one down that does not put much risk or any risk for that matter on us financially, then we’re going to pursue it. In terms of models and leagues and how we’d structure it, etc, etc, that’s way down the road. Once we have something — if we have something — you’ll be the first to know.”