Dana White’s recent TKO Boxing league continues to fire up a storm.
The announcement of Dana White and Turki Alalshikh starting a brand new boxing league together has been met with a mixed response from the worldwide combat sports community.
On one hand, some fans argue White’s enterprise will bring a much-needed breath of fresh air to the game – while others state that the UFC model he’s expected to bring with him, simply won’t work for skilled boxing.
Dana White desires to ‘break’ boxing down before rebuilding with recent league
Talking to Fight Hub TV, as he watched ‘King’ Callum Walsh rating a first-round knockout in Recent York City, Dana White was asked about his plan to ‘fix boxing’ – specifically, what must be different to ensure that TKO Boxing to succeed.
“Ah, where do you start? Probably, you recognize, [making] the perfect fighting the perfect, I’d start there.”
White remained coy on whether TKO’s first boxing event might be headlined by Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford, noting that each he and Turki Alalshikh are in an interesting position – in the event that they can get on the best side of things.
“Listen, my model is way different, Turki has things that he’s obligated to over the subsequent 18 months… I would like to interrupt this sport down and construct it from the bottom up like we did with the UFC so I’m on a special path.”
When asked whether he’ll be working with the likes of Oscar De La Hoya, Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren and other top promoters in booking matchups, White simply smiled and said: “I don’t know, I don’t know the way that’s all going to play out, we’ll see.”
Those comments have been met with a mixed response from the worldwide boxing community, with a big portion of the responses being to the tune of ‘This attitude can’t last’.
“Dana don’t know s— about boxing,” reads one fan comment, with one other slightly dejected listener adding “The more he talks, the more I would like him to avoid my sport.”
Dana White warned to ‘sleep with one eye open’ by Eddie Hearn
The UFC and Matchroom bosses have enjoyed a friendly working relationship for the past several years, with each promoters exceedingly complimentary about one another’s workflow.
Nonetheless, now that he’s entered the boxing scene as a possible rival, Eddie Hearn has warned Dana White about each the strength of schedule and about sleeping ‘with one eye open’.
“Boxing is the worst business on the planet,” Hearn stated during a recent interview with iFL TV.
“I hope these guys have gotten the appetite to be up all f—— night and sleep with one eye open each day… Since you’re not going to get control where you’ll be able to go to bed at 10 o’clock [at night] and get up at 8 o’clock [in the morning] and expect the industry and your situation to be the exact same.
“It doesn’t work like that. Every f—– is on the market hustling each day. Guess what? I’m certainly one of them,” laughed the Matchroom boss.
In a recent rant, boxing legend Paulie Malignaggi argued that White goes solo and won’t work with other promoters like Hearn and that the entire sport will suffer because of this.
