After mysterious comments about being ‘in’ on boxing, White offered up some tantalizing details on what that could look like.
Dana White recently raised a lot of radars in the sports community when he declared he was finally ‘in’ on boxing.
The UFC CEO has flirted with the idea of getting into boxing for years. Back in 2017 he even had shirts made for Zuffa Boxing, a theoretical promotion that never really got off the ground. But after White was in Ireland over the weekend to promote his boxer Callum Walsh, he’s ready to start teasing out details.
“I did my first fight in Ireland and yeah, we’ll start announcing stuff here beginning of 2025,” White said following Tuesday night’s Contender Series. “I have a plan. I’m gonna implement that plan, and we’ll see how it works. We’ll see how this thing works.”
“People have been talking about the demise of boxing for 30 years, and we’re still here talking about boxing right now. 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 gonna find out. I’m coming in guns blazing.”
White talked about building offices and infrastructure for his boxing venture in the Apex, which is currently undergoing serious renovations. He also suggested he was willing to work with a lot of friendly faces in the scene.
“I like Eddie Hearn very much,” he said. “Eddie Hearn was at the Sphere fight. He he came early, before the fight started. I have a great relationship with him. I have a great relationship with the Warrens [Queensberry]. Obviously, love Tom Loeffler [360] and his matchmaking and what he does. Yeah, I would probably be working with a lot of people.”
“I’m sure you can assume the people that I would not be working with,” he added. “I don’t think you have to be a f—ing genius to figure that one out. But, yeah, I like Eddie Hearn a lot and would love to work with Eddie Hearn.”
When asked about the 2017 Zuffa Boxing feelers and what made this foray into boxing different, White cited timing … and then more specifically, television deals.
“If you notice as far as boxing goes, even with as much money as Turki Alalshikh is throwing into this thing, television deals aren’t really abundant right now. There’s just a lot of things that I think I can do that other people haven’t done yet.”
For the Callum Walsh fight, White said he saw himself as HBO while 360’s Tom Loeffler was the promoter.
“I will definitely be HBO,” White said when asked about the quote.
Could this mean White plans on putting together a broadcast deal with his entertainment powerhouse owners at Endeavor where other promoters are brought in to hold fights? That’s how HBO operated for decades before the premium cable channel shut down their boxing division.
The UFC has experience doing that sort of thing through UFC Fight Pass, which was how they pushed the Walsh fight. So it would fit, and with the promotion talking to everyone in 2025 about a new UFC broadcast deal, it’d be a good time to also have a boxing product on offer.
“I’ll let you know the plan when everything’s done,” White said. “When everything’s done, I’ll lay out what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna do it, and we’ll see how it goes.”