That may explain why seemingly every top UFC fighter wants to try their hand at boxing.
Dana White helped Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) become the biggest and most lucrative promotion in the history of combat sports. But even with his award-winning resume, White remains obsessed with the sport of boxing, regardless of the fact that he’s “failed” to make any headway in the “sweet science.”
That’s according to the new face of boxing, Jake Paul, and MVP’s Nakisa Bidarian.
“He’s been pushing this Irish kid for like three years,” Bidarian told All The Smoke Fight. “Who’s now calling Jake a p*ssy and saying, ‘Jake would never fight me.’ My man, you just went to Dublin in your hometown and sold 3,000 tickets with Dana White pushing you. [Jake] is 12 fights in selling 72,000. It’s not comparable. [White is] really an influencer at this point. It’s the truth. If you look at his platform and how he exercises his reach, he’s gonna try to influence his new boxing league, which is no problem.”
White is currently promoting Irish pugilist Callum Walsh and promises to come in “guns blazing” with his new boxing partnership in 2025.
Until then, White will have to settle for removing the “mixed” from the “martial arts.” Paul argues MMA, once dominated by grapplers like the Gracie family, is now just a “sh*ttier version of boxing.” That’s because the promotion is populated by savvy strikers like reigning UFC light heavyweight kingpin, Alex Pereira.
“Poatan” was a two-division kickboxing champion before migrating to UFC.
“MMA is not what it was, that’s the truth of the matter,” Paul added. “Boxing is bigger than ever. The biggest sporting event of the year, of 2024, was boxing, whereas MMA is becoming a shittier version of boxing, essentially. It’s kickboxing. Because everyone is getting good takedown defense and everyone is a black belt in jiu-jitsu. So there’s no more submissions really, there’s not a lot of takedowns and even if there is it’s f*cking boring, but everyone is good at takedown defense. So it’s literally kickboxing.”
Before Pereira, Israel Adesanya — also a kickboxer — was the top name at middleweight.
“Guess who the biggest star of the sport is in MMA? Alex Pereira, who is a kickboxer, because he’s knocking everyone out, blah, blah, blah,” Paul continued. “And he’s the best one because no one can take him down, no one can submit him so he’s just knocking everyone out. The UFC has less significant strikes per rounds, and that’s with five-minute rounds. So boxing is going to stand the test of time because it has … since the 1500s. 500, 600 years of boxing. I don’t think MMA — I’m not long on MMA, because it’s becoming boxing.”
For the record, Pereira has been taken down nine times in 10 UFC fights.
White remains an outspoken critic of Paul’s boxing endeavors, which include a Netflix mega-fight against Mike Tyson. Despite his opinion on the state of MMA, it should be noted that Paul is currently signed to Professional Fighters League (PFL) and may soon try his luck inside the SmartCage.
By Paul’s logic, that scenario will produce a sh*ttier version of “El Gallo.”