Dana White ‘100-Percent’ Crossing Over into Boxing Promotion
UFC president Dana White is ready to throw his hat into the boxing ring.
On Wednesday night while speaking to director Peter Berg at his speaker series held at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles, White confirmed that he’s already started to explore his move into promoting professional boxing alongside the UFC owners at Endeavor (previously known as WME-IMG).
White had teased a possible move into boxing in recent weeks but on Wednesday he said the transition was ‘100-percent’ certainty.
“I’m not leaving the UFC. I’m getting into boxing with [Endeavor CEO] Ari [Emanuel] and the UFC will be doing boxing, too,” White said according to the L.A. Times.
“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.”
According to the report, White has already started to explore getting his promoter’s license for boxing and it sounds like he’s moving rather quickly at booking fights in 2018.
White hasn’t gone as far as signing any fighters but it certainly appears that he’s looking at his options sooner rather than later.
The outspoken UFC president has taken shots at the way boxing has been promoted over the years, especially with a lack of online presence when it comes to streaming some of the biggest fights taking place each year.
White was critical of the current standards in boxing when helping to promote the showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor over the summer when Showtime set up an online pay-per-view for the fight for the first time in history. Meanwhile, the UFC has been offering online pay-per-views for several years while embracing the streaming philosophy with millennials who are cutting the cord with cable and satellite more and more these days while showing stronger interest in services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.
It certainly appears like White wants to introduce some of the same changes in boxing that he introduced into mixed martial arts with the UFC and he’s moving quickly to make that all happen in the very near future.
