UFC's White Getting Promoter's License: 100% - I'm Doing Boxing

[Ruthless-RKO]

UFC President Dana White has indicated that his company is going to move forward with their plan to stage boxing events in 2018.

Back in August, White was a big part of the promotion for the cross-sport boxing match between comebacking Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the UFC's biggest superstar, Conor McGregor.

On Tuesday, White told The Los Angeles Times - “I am getting into boxing, 100 percent. It’s still early. We’re still working on it. I’ve got to get my [stuff] together, but I’m getting into boxing, man. It’s coming. We still have to get some homework done. I feel like I can do it better than everyone else. I love the sport.”

The UFC executive also advised the paper that he's currently in the process of securing a promoter's license for boxing.

White believes the UFC can elevate boxing in the same manner that it elevated Mixed Martial Arts and made it a mainstream sport.

In a recent interview, White explained that boxers will be better suited to fight under the UFC as opposed to large boxing promoters like Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions.

White believes that a lot of boxers will head to the UFC once they see how things are handled by his company, and he detailed the numerous perks that are in store for boxers who go across the street to fight for the UFC.

“I just know how good we are at what we do, and I know we’re better than pretty much everybody else out there,” White said to Jim Rome's Podcast. “I think that the guys who are involved in boxing, the fighters, would enjoy being under this umbrella and fighting for us, and yeah, I do think would could do it better than everybody else does. So what the hell, why not give it a shot?”

“We’re the best. We’re the best at what we do. We think about the future. If you look at this facility that we’re in now (the UFC Performance Institute), a state-of-the-art facility with every piece of equipment you can think about as far as recovery, getting stronger. We have a restaurant here that they eat at everyday for free, costs nothing for the fighters to come here and do all this stuff. Plus, we have a physical therapy center where all the fighters can come in and get physical therapy for free.

“On top of, I think we do our events better than they do, our production is better than the production that’s out there. I think everything in this business that you could possibly do, we do better, and we have health insurance for our fighters.”

[Oiky]

Fair play and good luck to him, I'd like to see it

[p4p1]

Things in the UFCs favour over current boxing promoters off the top of my head assuming they do the same things in boxing they do currently.
Full health insurance for all fighters - this should actually be something that all promoters should be required to provide to their athletes by law IMO.
Better pay for undercard fighters.
Better production.
Probably the best promotion/hype machine on the world right now. There's definitely more UFC fighters present in the mainstream media than boxers. Weidman is on Kevin can wait, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz were easily able to promote their fight on mainstream shows, Rouseys horrid acting career, Bisping in the latest XXX movie, GSP in captain America etc.
Performance and fight of the night bonuses of around $50k promote exciting fighting and reward exciting fighters.

The UFCs business model is probably an improvment for everyone who doesn't sell 500k+ PPVs every fight. It could be very interesting times ahead for boxing though, is there's any mention of Mayweather being involved? I honestly thought his last fight was to test the waters of the UFC and Mayweather working together in boxing.

[Cent0089]

If he can promote top UFC fighters in boxing against C and B class oposition, he can be pretty succesful.

[brian13]

I don't think he will be successful, he will get involved too much into politics and will have to try to work with people he has had public arguments with.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Of course he'll be successful.

[jamamb]

hopefully he brings over ufc competitive matchmaking. like cards filled with prospects and contrnders fighting. and gettings guy right back out there after losses to help thrm build back up . not sure what level of boxers hes looking to start with.

[TheGingerBomber]

He can't do what he's done with MMA, I'd expect if he is branching out it will be in the fashion of a Matchroom or Top Rank. Surely he doesn't have ideas for UFC boxing titles?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

He can't do what he's done with MMA, I'd expect if he is branching out it will be in the fashion of a Matchroom or Top Rank. Surely he doesn't have ideas for UFC boxing titles?

I would expect UFC titles to be their goal. Quite a different thing to see it to fruition.

[Orionx]

Dana is a very driven, smart guy who is loaded and has insane connections in Vegas, NY, the whole world tbh. This could be a game changing moment.

[Sklar]

Surely he doesn't have ideas for UFC boxing titles?

Why not? That's exactly what I'd have in the pipeline if I were him.

[Ossyrules]

I don’t think he’ll be successful and even though boxing is a mess, I don’t think what he intends to achieve is particularly good for boxing either

[TheGingerBomber]

Surely he doesn't have ideas for UFC boxing titles?

Why not? That's exactly what I'd have in the pipeline if I were him.

Maybe he has that in mind, but given he pays majority of his fighters peanuts, can't imagine any top fighters joining a closed promotion. His best bet is to operate in the same way as every other promotion in boxing, at least for now.

[Thomastearns]

Things in the UFCs favour over current boxing promoters off the top of my head assuming they do the same things in boxing they do currently.
Full health insurance for all fighters - this should actually be something that all promoters should be required to provide to their athletes by law IMO.
Better pay for undercard fighters.
Better production.
Probably the best promotion/hype machine on the world right now. There's definitely more UFC fighters present in the mainstream media than boxers. Weidman is on Kevin can wait, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz were easily able to promote their fight on mainstream shows, Rouseys horrid acting career, Bisping in the latest XXX movie, GSP in captain America etc.
Performance and fight of the night bonuses of around $50k promote exciting fighting and reward exciting fighters.

The UFCs business model is probably an improvment for everyone who doesn't sell 500k+ PPVs every fight. It could be very interesting times ahead for boxing though, is there's any mention of Mayweather being involved? I honestly thought his last fight was to test the waters of the UFC and Mayweather working together in boxing.

Its about time a more professional approach was tried. Full health insurance and better undercard pay? Yes.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Surely he doesn't have ideas for UFC boxing titles?

Why not? That's exactly what I'd have in the pipeline if I were him.

Maybe he has that in mind, but given he pays majority of his fighters peanuts, can't imagine any top fighters joining a closed promotion. His best bet is to operate in the same way as every other promotion in boxing, at least for now.

He doesn't pay peanuts. That's a boxing fan myth. There are certainly plenty of fighters that want. And some that deserve, more but that's any business that's going right. Boxing needs more 'peanut' purses.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I don’t think he’ll be successful and even though boxing is a mess, I don’t think what he intends to achieve is particularly good for boxing either

What does he intend to achieve?

[SAPFO]

In almost every UFC fight anything can happen. If boxing was matched like MMA was at the highest level, then boxing would be better for it. First stop is to get rid of this obsession with not losing the '0'. You learn more from defeat.

[Ossyrules]

I don’t think he’ll be successful and even though boxing is a mess, I don’t think what he intends to achieve is particularly good for boxing either

What does he intend to achieve?

I d made an assumption if he replicated his UFC set up from mma with boxing

[gilgamesh]

This should be interesting.

[Jip]

I dont like him. Hopefully he fails. I dont want this moron in boxing, with wilder, broner and charlo bros we have enough morons already.

[gilgamesh]

I dont like him. Hopefully he fails. I dont want this moron in boxing, with wilder, broner and charlo bros we have enough morons already.

What makes him a moron? He's a pretty intelligent, and crafty guy from what I can tell.

[Jip]

I dont like him. Hopefully he fails. I dont want this moron in boxing, with wilder, broner and charlo bros we have enough morons already.

What makes him a moron? He's a pretty intelligent, and crafty guy from what I can tell.

He is not intelligent. He is an aggressiv hard working business man. I give him that. But that doesnt interest me. I dont care if someone is hard working or not working. I care if i find somebody cool or the opposite.

Dana is a petty Bourgeois. Simple minded guy.

[gilgamesh]

He is not intelligent. He is an aggressiv hard working business man. I give him that. But that doesnt interest me. I dont care if someone is hard working or not working. I care if i find somebody cool or the opposite.

Dana is a petty Bourgeois. Simple minded guy.

So you don't find him cool...therefore he's not intelligent

Sounds like a real intelligent thought you had there.

[Jip]

He is not intelligent. He is an aggressiv hard working business man. I give him that. But that doesnt interest me. I dont care if someone is hard working or not working. I care if i find somebody cool or the opposite.

Dana is a petty Bourgeois. Simple minded guy.

So you don't find him cool...therefore he's not intelligent

Sounds like a real intelligent thought you had there.

I never said he aint intelligent because he aint cool.

Somebody can be cool but dumb and the opposite

[ElJefe]

It'll definitely be a different challenge than his start in MMA. Easier in the sense that boxing as a sport is on a much higher level than MMA in the late 90s, but more difficult in that with MMA he had pretty much a blank slate, whereas boxing is already messy. Not sure how he'll go about signing fighters. With the vast majority already signed to top promoters and advisers, how many are going to be willing to put the best years of their career at risk for this experiment?