LONDON – Sky Sports’ short boxing hiatus has come to an end.
There had been doubts over whether the UK’s leading sports broadcaster would continue its involvement in the sport after choosing not to extend its deal with Boxxer last June. Boxxer subsequently signed with the BBC, but Sky’s next move remained unclear.
The Boxxer partnership had failed to replicate the success Sky previously enjoyed with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, and with DAZN securing deals with both Matchroom and Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, there appeared to be limited options left on British shores.
Alas, Sky seems to have found its men – or women.
The broadcaster confirmed its return with an event promoted by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) and featuring four women’s world title fights on April 5 at London’s Olympia. Headlining the card is the WBC and WBO lightweight unification between Caroline Dubois and Terri Harper, while Ellie Scotney faces Mayelli Flores Rosquero in an undisputed junior featherweight title bout on the undercard.
It will mark MVP’s first promotion on British soil, though Bidarian revealed the move has been years in the making.
“We've been working on this since September, trying to figure out the right time to come to the UK, partnering with Sky, but really it started in August of 2021 when we had Jake Paul's first pay-per-view on Showtime,” Bidarian told BoxingScene. “We went to Showtime and we said we want the co-main to be a women’s fight and Showtime looked at us quite confused, and men’s promoters in the US thought we were silly, putting a woman on pay-per-view, which was Amanda Serrano, and now here we are today.”
There were reports that MVP and Sky Sports could enter a long-term broadcast deal, but BoxingScene understands at present that currently the April 5 show in London is a stand alone event.
Bidarian, however, did reveal that there are talks continuing with Sky Sports about bringing regular shows with MVP to the UK, and not only that, bringing one of the sport’s biggest personalities back to where it all started in 2020.
“We're continuing to work on our long-term relationship,” he said. “My hope is we'll have that announced in the next few weeks or months. We’re looking to be in the UK on a consistent basis. Look, there’s so much boxing product in the UK. It’s much more than the US in a smaller place. That means there’s great fans here, but we want to be here on a consistent basis, and I would love to bring Jake Paul to the UK. We’ve talked about it in the past and I think it’s only right that he comes here. He started his career here and he should continue it here.”
A major appeal of MVP to Sky is its roster of elite women fighters. Sky has long invested heavily in women’s boxing, playing a key role in the sport’s modern rise during its partnership with Matchroom, beginning with Katie Taylor’s professional emergence in 2016. More recently, during Boxxer’s tenure, Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price both claimed world titles and headlined shows on the platform.
“I would say Sky is big in women's sports, right?" Bidarian said. “They're massive believers, as they should be, as every broadcaster should be, in the power of women to put on amazing entertainment products. At the end of the day, all of this is entertainment and your competition is not just boxing but every other sport, but it's movies, it's TV, it's going shopping, it's Instagram, TikTok. Can you capture the imagination of someone who's sitting in front of their TV and watching? We've always believed women could in boxing and we're seeing that.”
MVP has emerged as the sport’s most aggressive investor in women’s boxing in recent years. While Matchroom once led the way, its female roster has since thinned, and investment from other promotional outfits has slowed. There was once a time that every card in the UK had at least one woman displaying her skills, but times have changed.
“Well, I would say Eddie Hearn has been a good proponent of women's boxing and still is in his little spots,” Bidarian said. “So that I don't think has changed. I think outside of Eddie, in the US, there's never been something that people have focused on. When we did the first fight between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, Bob Arum came on the air and said, ‘I don't care if Shakur Stevenson is going against them, nobody cares about women's boxing.’ And even in the UK, like the Warrens [Frank and George Warren of Queensberry Promotions]... I love the Warrens, love Frank, love George, they've never been big investors in women's boxing.
“So I think it's not that it went through a down period, there hasn't been massive investment in it overall outside of Eddie Hearn, for the period that he had. And I think he picks his spots of where he thinks there's somebody that can be a breakout star. For us, it's about having a reference brand that has the best fighters in the world under one umbrella that gives you the opportunity to make cards like this. How many cards have four world championship fights? Very rare. Maybe Turki Alalshikh can pull those off once in a while, but that's Turki Alalshikh and he's coming out of pocket in a major way to do it. We're the only other promoter that can do that.”
MVP is not the only promotional company looking to disrupt the ways of old. Dana White has recently sparked debate with his ideology of bringing in a one belt per weight division system with his Zuffa Boxing.
With MVP housing much of the elite talent in women’s boxing, Bidarian was asked whether the company would ever consider moving away from the traditional sanctioning bodies.
“I think we'll let the fighters dictate what we do versus us dictating what we do,” he said. “The way we look at it is, it doesn't matter if it's four sanctioning body belts or an MVP belt if you have the best fighters in the world. And if we have the ability to navigate the ecosystem so there's not some mandatory that makes the belt leave the ecosystem. We want to have enough relationships with enough top talent that it all stays within the brand.”
The investment into women’s boxing from MVP has been unquestionable, but if they are to have sustained success, especially in the UK, then surely they will have to dip into the male market?
“Yeah, I mean look, we've been strategic in how we've built up our male roster,” Bidarian said. “Obviously we have the most mainstream fighter in the world in Jake Paul, but there's like eight promoters fighting over men's boxing day in and day out. So sure we can come in the market, and trust me we get so many inbound inquiries from male fighters that want to work with us, but I need to do things that: A) make an impact, which is what Jake does, B) give real opportunity for fighters, and then C) have real financial sense.
“The issue is when you start bidding for these fighters, and then you don't control the talent pool, and you’ve got to go to a purse bid, or Eddie's over here, or Frank's over there, or Bob Arum's over there, Oscar De La Hoya's over there, Al Haymon's over there somewhere, keeping an eye out on things. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.”
Tom Ivers is a lifelong fight fan and former amateur boxer who has a master’s degree in sports journalism. Tom joined BoxingScene in 2024 and is now a key part of the UK and social media teams.
