Dana White says they won’t be working with WBC, WBO, IBF and any other sanctioning bodies during their boxing venture.
While plans have yet to materialize, Dana White has been talking about his plans to start promoting boxing fights for a while now.
In his latest update on their targeted venture to another combat sport, the UFC President revealed that he doesn’t plan on working with any of the sanctioning bodies currently in place. As per an interview with White on the Australian Financial Review, Zuffa instead plans to create “a new league that it will own and control.”
“We will not work with the WBA, WBC, IBF, IBO, and WBO organizations,” White said.
White didn’t elaborate if they will be having their own champions and own rankings instead, or how exactly they plan on doing all that, especially with the Ali Act in place.
It is also worth noting that these sanctioning bodies seem to be part of the growing list of people and organizations in boxing that the UFC president vows he isn’t going to work with. White has already said he wouldn’t be working with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, Bob Arum’s Top Rank, and Showtime Boxing.
That list has a sizable chunk of boxers and personalities involved, so does this mean that athletes under Zuffa would have issues securing fights against anyone under those banners? Well despite that peculiar situation they could possibly fall under, White claims there is interest from numerous boxers already.
”The interest is definitely there – all the fighters have reached out, other promoters have contacted us and everybody’s keen,” White said. “The question is how I make it work with bandwidth maxed out right now running the UFC’s business.”