Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is sitting on the sidelines while his rival, UFC President Dana White, is preparing to stage three events this month, in the state of Florida, with the first taking place on May 9.
De La Hoya's company officially entered the mixed martial arts market on November 24, 2018 - with their first event taking place at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The event was headlined by the trilogy fight between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. The fight was a shadow of their first two meetings, with Ortiz winning with a first round knockout.
There was a lot of criticism over the card, because Liddell was 48-years-old and coming back after eight years of being inactive. He also suffered some brutal knockout losses before retiring.
The pay-per-view itself, sold for $40 a pop, was called a commercial failure by MMA experts, with the card reportedly securing 40,000 buys, although some believe the number was even lower. The event sold over 5,000 tickets for a gate of $732,000.
De La Hoya disagrees with critics and believes his event did well enough to stage more MMA cards in the future.
"We dipped our toe in the MMA water with Chuck Liddell against Tito Ortiz and it was a massive success," De La Hoya told CBS Sports' "State of Combat" podcast. "Dana came out and criticized me and ridiculed me but Dana is doing a phenomenal job in defending his sport and growing his sport. He's doing it big and doing it great. I commend him.
"I believe that people are itching to get back to sports to experience that live event. I strongly believe that there is nothing like a sports event like UFC or boxing at the highest level and I believe people are missing that. I strongly believe that it's a matter of time until we are going to see people filling up those arenas and getting back to the norm."
De La Hoya believes the coronavirus pandemic will force boxing promoters to put on better matches and offer lower ticket prices for events.
"Maybe it's an omen, I don't know," De La Hoya said. "Especially boxing, you rely on the international high roller from Asia or the UK to go to [Las] Vegas and spend their money and buy a $2500 ringside ticket. Maybe we have to reduce our prices for every event we do and therefore it will create more excitement and more fans to attend our boxing shows. Who knows? Boxing has always been a sport where if you have two superstars, you can charge $5,000 or $10,000 for ringside tickets. Maybe those days are over."
