Dana White on Zuffa Boxing delay: ‘I’m still dealing with’ speed bumps

[Primetyme199]

https://youtu.be/FcqCci8j3Dc

UFC president Dana White aimed to have Zuffa Boxing formally off the ground by October, but we’re well into December with nothing to report.

What’s caused the delay? Well, let’s just say that Dana is pretty tight-lipped on the specific details.

In a pre-UFC 245 interview with Yahoo’s Kevin Iole (video at the top of the page), White promised that Zuffa Boxing is coming along, but they’re dealing with some challenges.

“Like in all businesses, there’s potholes in the road and speed bumps that you have to deal with,” White said. “I’m still dealing with that stuff. Once I get all my ducks in a row, I will announce [Zuffa Boxing].

“We’ll do a press conference and we’ll get this whole thing rolling.”

As far as what those “speed bumps” entail, there was no elaboration on his part. These apparent difficulties with Zuffa Boxing have gone on since at least last August, when he admitted that “a lot of things didn’t line up the way that I thought they would in the boxing world, when I said we’re about to make a ballsy move.”

White has already declared that he won’t work with major sanctioning bodies (WBO, IBF, WBC, WBA) and that they’ll form their own league, and he’s stated no interest in working with promoters Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya, as well as Showtime Boxing.

Speaking of Arum, Top Rank Boxing has an exclusive boxing contract with ESPN, but White told Iole that ESPN is actually receptive to the idea of Zuffa Boxing.

“I think that ESPN has been excited about the fact that we might get into boxing,” White said. “They’re excited about it and they’ve been very positive and supportive.”

In the meantime, we keep on waiting until Zuffa Boxing turns into more than just a concept.

[NoPropaganda 253]

Dana White Remember He's Just A Bag Carrier in Boxing, Cries About It Like A Bitch, Throws In The Towel On Boxing Aspirations, Cries Some More:

DANA WHITE UNCERTAIN ON FUTURE OF ZUFFA BOXING: ‘THAT SPORT’S A MESS’
BY TRISTEN CRITCHFIELD
MAR 29, 2020



Dana White seems to be wavering on promoting Zuffa Boxing in the near future.

After helping to promote the blockbuster boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor in 2017, the UFC president vowed that he was “getting into boxing, 100 percent.” In the months that followed White stood by those plans, even teasing an announcement for this coming October.

While White currently has bigger issues at hand in trying to stage a UFC pay-per-view during a global pandemic, he doesn’t sound optimistic when it comes to the overall state of the Sweet Science. That, in turn, has seemingly dampened his enthusiasm for his own boxing endeavor.



“I hate speaking negatively about the sport of boxing, other than the fact that it’s a mess – we all knows it’s a mess – and that it needs to be fixed, if it can be fixed,” White said in an interview with Yahoo Sports Kevin Iole. “I told you guys that I would have a press conference last October and announce all these things, but as I dove into this thing and started to look into the sport of boxing, the economics of boxing, that sport’s a mess. It’s a mess and it’s in big trouble. I don’t know. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”

White balked at the notion of having boxing matches under the UFC umbrella to potentially gain a larger audience for Zuffa boxing. A centrally-focused event with one discipline is a far more appealing prospect for the UFC boss.

“I believe that when you put on a UFC event or a boxing event, all the focus and attention should be on that one event. You start with the main event and then it trickles down into the card,” White said. “There are some great fights that are lined up like, if you don’t know now you know. There’s a couple of fights in there that people might not actually know about that you focus on. And the same thing for a boxing match. When you go to an event, any event, you have to be focused on what’s happening on that card and excited about it. . . You can’t mix and mash all those things together. It just doesn’t work, in my opinion.”

White added that the audience for both sports is entirely different. Those who attend a big-ticket boxing card like the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder rematch might not necessarily be interested in seeing Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson square off for UFC lightweight gold.

“You’re gonna bring out different groups of people for different events,” White said. “Like when we do pay-per-views, it’s not all the same buyers. For different fights, it’s different buyers. You have that general group, the hardcore fans that are gonna buy almost everything, and then different types of fights are gonna bring in different people.”

https://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Dana- ... ess-172041

[jeff_lacy_ko]

Im sure he found out reality that you cant create your own league. Too many competitors that have been around forever