UFC Boss Dana White: Is He Good or Bad for Boxing?

[AdSense-A]

By Roy “The Body Snatcher” Skillen

I’m confused. That’s nothing new according to my wife, but even I have noticed an increase in my frozen brain syndrome in recent months and unfortunately, I blame boxing. Yes, my one true sporting love has been toying with me, pulling my heart strings and making me question what the hell is going on in the world. On one hand we have had some magical moments in the ring such as Tyson Fury’s last round resurrection against Deontay Wilder, Vasyl Lomachenko just being Vasyl Lomachenko and the more recent fight between Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis. Unfortunately, the great has been overshadowed by politics, shit talking and the creation of meaningless, dust carrying belts.

For me it all started with the current WBC World Heavyweight Champion, Deontay Wilder. Now I am not going to dive in to the usual Wilder hate rhetoric here because credit where credit is due the dude is constantly improving his game and despite some obvious flaws there is no doubting that he is a KO machine. He has the overall ability to beat anybody in the game, but I simply don’t like his mouth. Ever since he took hold of the belt, he has told the boxing faithful that for him it’s not about the money, it’s about unification, one name, one champion. But what has he done to fulfil this prediction?

You can say what you want about my man Mike Tyson. But when he became undisputed champion of the world he took on all comers. After hearing people say he would never be considered the real champ until he beat Larry Holmes, he went and knocked him out. Well, Michael Spinks beat Holmes first so Mike isn’t the champ until he beats him, 93 seconds later Spinks is on his ass.

And then there is the Dillian Whyte issue. I lost count of how many days he was mandatory challenger before he allegedly failed a drug test, was cleared to fight, suspended from his number one challenger spot and then left in the dark by, by Britain’s drug cheat enforcers UKAD as to where his career stands. We also had Floyd Mayweather, JR. fighting some drunk Irishman for $300 Million and to top it off the invention of the “Franchise Belt”. I mean, what the hell is that all about?

It’s a belt given to a fighter that then has to relinquish his World Title. It’s a belt that cannot be taken from you, no matter how often you lose from now on. It’s a belt that now means Vasyl Lomachenko will not be fighting to become undisputed champion any time soon because in order to be “Franchise Champion” you can’t be world champion and now my head is spinning. To me it’s a disaster. Try explaining all of these situations to a casual sports fan that might be dipping his toe in the boxing water for the first time, they simply won’t stick around. In short boxing is an organizational mess, and it needs sorting out now.

But how? And by who?

Love him or hate him you simply cannot question the work that Dana White has done with the UFC. It’s a global phenomenon with a head honcho that makes the best fights happen and markets the shit out of them. There is no easy road in the UFC and you simply will not see a fighter handed a world title belt without stepping into the ring. In short, it’s a dictatorship, but one that works and one that many feel is needed in boxing.

But, could Dana White bring his model from the octagon to the squared circle? And if he could how would it go down with boxing fans? Or is the sport simply beyond repair?

“You’ve got a guy like Tyson Fury who comes off this amazing fight with Deontay Wilder. It was a good fight, people loved the fight, and people were excited about it, and what happens? It ends in a draw and they don’t rematch. Or they don’t fight one of the other big two. How does that happen? How is that even possible?” Asks White during an interview with MMAFighting.com to promote his new boxing venture Zuffa.

“It’s the sport and the politics in the sport and it has always been that way and if somebody doesn’t change it, it’s always gonna be that way,” he continues before laying out his plans to manage his fighters just like he does in the UFC.

“The fighters get paid. Everybody gets paid. Everybody is being paid, and it’s not just the top 2-3. Everybody on the roster — I got over 600 guys that are getting paid and making a living and feeding their families and buying houses and cars and all these other things. Now when you look at boxing, a handful of guys make crazy money, and that’s the way it’s always been built. And then you have thousands of people that don’t. So I think that we can create a pay system [in boxing] that benefits everybody.”

He did have plans to jump in to boxing this October, but by his own admission he has found navigating the boxing world a little more tricky than he first thought, but still has plans for a, “ballsy” move in the near future.

But Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn isn’t convinced that the UFC model will work at all in the boxing world.

“I think Dana White is a very intelligent man,” Hearn said. “I think he’s a great promoter as well. A lot of the stuff that he’s done with the UFC — I’ll be honest, I’ve copied a lot of it. They’ve done a great job. I think the difference [is] he’s gonna find it very different in boxing [compered to] UFC. It’s not a sport that you can go in and dominate the fighters, control the fighters, get them to sign contracts to fight ultimately whoever they’re told to fight, which is the UFC model.”

I for one am excited as to what he might bring to the table. He might fall flat on his face but then again, he might not. But we already know that whatever Dana White’s ballsy move is going to be, it will surely be an entertaining one.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]