The battle lines have been drawn, and Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing – the outfit that has Turki Alalshikh’s backing – is ready to take on anyone in its quest to rule the sport.
When one considers White’s friends in high places – Donald Trump is another fan of the UFC boss – alongside the money that’s believed to be at his disposal, he would likely be made favorite to win, too. But the ‘old guard’ – promotional powerhouses like Matchroom, Top Rank, Queensberry and Golden Boy – are getting increasingly insistent that they will not be moved.
Emotions are high. Egos are on show.
Arguably the most influential of that old guard, Eddie Hearn, even pulled his pants down this week and proudly entered the dick-swinging contest by signing UFC star Tom Aspinall on an advisory basis in response to White snatching Conor Benn from Matchroom a fortnight ago.
This is uncharted territory in boxing, we’re told. But Zuffa’s not the first organization or promoter to come along with promises of reform. Don King did so; Frank Warren did so; Oscar De La Hoya did so; Hearn did so. Furthermore, every promoter who came along with cash on the hip, or means to produce it, did so while driving the existing hierarchy bonkers. But in many ways, each of them, though fueled by ambition and hopes of a new and improved sport, merely facilitated existing bad habits in the long run. If Zuffa is to implement palpable improvements, and not just add an extra belt or a tweak to the rules, then it will have to prove it’s better than what came before. In turn, those who came before must prove that what exists is better than what might be coming.
Thus, this battle is far from over.
The biggest headline of the last fortnight was Zuffa’s signing of Benn. Though it was certainly a shock, given Benn’s supposedly unbreakable relationship with Matchroom, further context is required when evaluating its true significance. Benn is indeed highly marketable, but he’s far from proven at world level, and victory over the shop-worn Regis Prograis on April 11 will do little to change that. When, or if, he is stepped up to elite level, there is every chance he loses. Whatever happens, Benn is certainly not going to be the catalyst for a new and improved sport. What he should be, however, is an indicator of Zuffa’s ability to seduce talent away from leading promotional rivals.
But when one looks across the entire sport, it can be argued that there simply aren’t enough truly big names – even if Zuffa nabbed every one of them – to make the kind of splash that would submerge the surrounding landscape.
At heavyweight, you would say Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua are all bona fide A-listers but each of them is past his best. And should Zuffa sign all three? (It won’t, but bear with me.) Then what? Who will they be matched with and how many fights can the promoter realistically get from what would amount to a seismic investment?
Is Jai Opetaia, at cruiserweight, a superstar? No. Or at least not yet.
David Benavidez, maybe, at light heavyweight. The disappointing viewing figures for both Dmitry Bivol-Artur Beterbiev contests puts a question mark alongside their drawing power.
Canelo Alvarez at super middleweight.
Nobody at middleweight.
At junior middleweight, as painful as it is to say, neither Vergil Ortiz Jnr nor Jaron Ennis is yet a crossover star. If you scoff at that, think back to the box office performance of Terence Crawford-Errol Spence for context. Even though that was the matchup that hardcore fans had wet their pants about for years, it flunked, exposure-wise, when compared to similar fights from the past.
Welterweight is interesting. Ryan Garcia likely slips in. Arguably, too, Manny Pacquiao and/or Floyd Mayweather Jnr – but anyone looking to sign either of those two on long-term deals should probably go outside and get some fresh air. Devin Haney is a question mark.
Down at junior welterweight, Shakur Stevenson has edged into the big-league bracket, but he’s the lone raider at 140 when it comes to moving the dial. And even he isn’t anywhere near the level of fame that someone like Mayweather used to be.
“Tank” Davis fits the bill at lightweight, but Tank Davis is also Gervonta Davis, the despicable character who might soon find himself in prison.
Then all we’re left with, from junior light to strawweight, is Naoya Inoue. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez – as much as the hardcores adore him – is unlikely to guarantee a huge audience on his own.
Jake Paul should probably get a mention because of the recent numbers he has generated. But he’s not about to join Zuffa, and Zuffa won’t want him if it is serious about “making boxing great again.”
There are, of course, plenty more on the cusp with the potential to become household names, and it’s those names that Zuffa would be wise to build long-term plans around. Problem is, many will be tied to deals elsewhere. Regardless, the point is that nobody – Zuffa or otherwise – will be able to make the matchmaking plays in the short term that are required to secure complete control.
“I like that people don’t understand what we’re doing,” White this week told IFL TV. “My thing is, how about you judge us at the end of the year on the body of work we do in boxing? That’s where I’m going with this whole thing.
“I don’t have a set plan of where I’m like, ‘We’re only going to do this, this and this.’ I get into these type of businesses and what I want to do is put on the best things I possibly can with the best fighters I can. … It’s all a work in progress.”
People expecting things to change overnight are certainly naive. But dramatic changes coming by the end of the year might also prove fanciful.
One established member of the old guard anonymously told BoxingScene: “It’s all well and good to come in with grand ideas and big promises, but to ‘take over’ you will need to sign all the young up-and-coming fighters to long-term deals. And I mean all of them. That’s easily done if you’re the only players in the market. They’re not.
“Promoters with more experience in the sport know exactly how it all works. We can sit down with an Olympian and their parents and show evidence of what we’ve done for other fighters in the past. We can show them how we can get them the education they need, how we will get them ranked, how we can move them up and how we can look after them financially while doing so. What is this lot going to do? Tell them that they’re going to be matched tough from the start and they could be involved in a life-and-death fight in their third or fourth fight? The reality of the 50/50 philosophy is exceptionally short careers.”
There are also those aforementioned friends in high places to consider. Alalshikh hasn’t exactly been a model of loyalty during his two-and-a-bit years in the sport, and Trump – his incredible ability to rewrite rulebooks notwithstanding – surely won’t be in office forever.
It's not just promotional wars to consider, either. The sanctioning bodies are digging their heels in, too. Though the concept of one champion per division is appealing, for as long as there are enough boxers willing to fight (and pay) for belts, and promoters to showcase them, then the sanctioning bodies won’t go anywhere.
The flip side, however, is the performance of those alphabet groups. Overnight, the IBF stood tall when they ruled that Opetaia's fight against 15th-ranked Brandon Glanton would not be sanctioned, and neither could it be a 'unification' simply because a new Zuffa belt was on the line. It was an admirable show of strength. But should those decisions grow ever more erratic – see: the WBC’s decision to approve Rico Verhoeven as a title challenger to Usyk – then their credibility suffers. Previously, a roll of the eyes would have been the lone reaction to such a decision. Today, our eyes might instead focus on an alternative to such nonsense. When it comes to titles, and fair rankings, all it will take is a few years of complete impartiality from the newbies, and a game-changing swing becomes a realistic possibility.
It's those finer details, therefore, that should be the real driver. Big fights and big signings will always exist, regardless. What boxing really needs is some order. It has for too long been an unruly child, getting away with all sorts while answering to no one. And like an unruly child, boxing needs boundaries and consistency. It needs rules that won’t be broken, rankings that can’t be bent and trust that is unspoken.
And it’s in those finer details – structural improvements and acute long-term planning – where this can all be won.
Should a winner ever truly emerge, of course. My money, for what it’s worth, is on a no-contest.
Matt Christie, a lifelong fight fan, has worked in boxing for more than 20 years. He left Boxing News in 2024 after 14 years, nine of which were spent as editor-in-chief. Before that, he was the producer of weekly boxing show “KOTV.” Now the co-host of ”The Opening Bell” podcast and regularly used by Sky Sports in the UK as a pundit, Matt was named as the Specialist Correspondent of the Year at the prestigious Sports Journalism Awards in 2021, which was the seventh SJA Award he accepted during his stint in the hot seat at Boxing News. The following year, he was inducted into the British Boxing Hall of Fame. He is a member of the BWAA and has been honored several times in their annual writing awards.
