It appears that the mega-event featuring Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor left Dana White with a boxing itch so fierce he’s ready to throw his hat in the promotional ring.
Addressing a crowd at Peter Berg’s Wild Card West speaker series in Santa Monica, Lance Pugmire of the Los Angles Times reports that White announced his intention to jump into the ring with boxing’s top promoters. The UFC chief goes on to say that boxing’s current promoters are a bunch of cowboys and there is no brand in the sport.
If you think about all the people involved in boxing, not a lot of people make a whole lot of money,” White said. “There’s a handful of guys making all the money and the rest make nothing. If you think about the billions of dollars boxing has brought in, at the end of the day, what’s there? Nothing. Because there’s no brand. There’s a bunch of cowboys.”
Doubling down on his critique, White explains how he’s in the ‘Holy s**t’ business when it come to putting on fights.
“You go to a boxing card, everyone shows up 10 minutes before the main fight … you go to a UFC event, that place is packed from the start and I’m in the ‘Holy … business. I need you to jump out of your seat three or four times and yell, ‘Holy … .’ Boxing, now the entire sport and the entire event rides on that one [main-event] fight, and if that fight sucks, I just stayed home on a Saturday night, blew some money and I’m not happy when I’m turning my TV off.
White also revealed he is in the process of obtaining a license to promote, likely Nevada, but has yet to dish any name of fighters who may jump over.