Dana White believes boxing can’t be fixed.
He has said for years he will be the one to fix the sport of boxing with the launch of Zuffa Boxing. Yet, it has been over a year since that happened and the promotion has not launched yet, despite White saying they’ve hired someone.
Now, speaking to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, White believes boxing is in big trouble.
“I hate speaking negatively about the sport of boxing, other than the fact that it’s a mess – we all knows it’s a mess – and that it needs to be fixed, if it can be fixed,” White said (via MMA Fighting). “I told you guys that I would have a press conference last October and announce all these things, but as I dove into this thing and started to look into the sport of boxing, the economics of boxing, that sport’s a mess. It’s a mess and it’s in big trouble. I don’t know. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
Dana White is also against the idea of hosting an event with multiple sports on it as Bellator will do MMA and Kickboxing. ONE Championship also holds events with MMA and muay Thai on the same card. The UFC boss believes you can’t mix combat sports into one event.
“I believe that when you put on a UFC event or a boxing event, all the focus and attention should be on that one event,” White said. “You start with the main event and then it trickles down into the card. There are some great fights that are lined up like, if you don’t know now you know. There’s a couple of fights in there that people might not actually know about that you focus on. And the same thing for a boxing match. When you go to an event, any event, you have to be focused on what’s happening on that card and excited about it. . . You can’t mix and mash all those things together. It just doesn’t work, in my opinion.”
So, for the time being, Dana White will focus on promoting the UFC as he doesn’t know if boxing can be fixed.