Conor Benn signs for Zuffa

It's an interesting one definitely, and no denying the problems. It isn't easily solved either, but I'll put up the best ideas I have.

I guess my key point is that having the promoter act as the sanctioning body cannot be the solution.

One of the positives boxing has is the separation of promoter and titles. Of course, there are too many sanctioning bodies, and history has shown how certain bodies have been 'in the pocket' of promoters, and sometimes come up with crazy excuses (e.g. franchise champions) to avoid stripping the likes of Canelo. As imperfect as it is, when properly implemented, the mandatory system has merit, and should (key word of course) ensure that the best reach the top.

It's this that concerns me about the Zuffa UBO model: a fighter could be stripped for promotional instead of sporting reasons. Let's say Jai Opetaia puts an unapproved sponsorship on his Zuffa shorts for his next fight - based on Hauser's article, that would be sufficient grounds for them to strip his title and lock him out of their walled garden. This would be absurd and imho unacceptable, and why I feel so strongly about avoiding their output. I urge anyone who hasn't read Hauser's article from January to give it a read; be aware of what Zuffa is before giving them your attention.

From the outside, motorsport has a good separation with an authoritative governing body. The FIA govern the sport, set rules, licence and sanction competition, while Liberty Media promote and organise it. An FIA-like boxing organisation for boxing would be the ideal if the sanctioning body turkeys would vote for Christmas.

(Fully aware the current FIA president isn't exactly flavour of the month with F1 teams and drivers, but more the principle of the FIA).

 

Eddie made a lot of money with the Sky monopoly and the AJ boom.

But he made mistakes trying to destroy Bricktop and then snaking Sky with the Dazn deal while pissing off everyone in America.

It's all come back to bite him in the rear.

Bricktop will still do okay as he's a got a strong domestic stable.

 

Eddie’s a great spin doctor and salesman, no doubt – but you can only market fool’s gold for so long before the audience sees through it. With the Sky machine behind him doing the heavy lifting to the casual crowd, you could get away with selling **** as gold and hiding in plain sight, because there’s always fresh eyeballs cycling through Sky’s ecosystem.

DAZN is different. It’s a niche product where boxing is basically the main selling point, so the product has to have substance to attract and retain people. Eddie thought he could bridge that gap by performing like a seal on social media and the Sky audience would just follow him over, but lately the sales pitch hasn’t delivered – dud after dud – and fans are discounting the hype before the bell and tuning out.

Meanwhile the guy he tried to take down might not be the salesman Eddie is, but there’s nothing Bricktop hasn’t seen. Since Fury’s comeback he’s done the old Don King/Arum move and quietly locked up talent in the key division, so he can actually deliver cards without overselling. If Zuffa end up on Sky, you might as well turn the lights off over at DAZN.

 

Good post. I can’t understand how some cannot see the conflict of interest in being manager of a fighter, promoter of shows and a sanctioning body with ranking systems and belts.

effectively, your earning ability, your ranking, matchmaking etc all come down to who the company choose. They decide clothes,sponsors, ring walks etc It’s bloody like their sister company wwe but for adults.

 

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Very pleased to see more boxing on Sky Sports

 

The problem with Zuffa boxing at the moment ( it's early days ) is that the fights mean nothing. In regular boxing, fights are a means to an end whether that's to win a world title ( pretty much most boxers at the start of their careers ) or to make the most money ( Benn Eubank jr ). They need to turn their list of boxers into some sort of rankings, have eliminators for the ' Zuffa title ' and let people know that it's No.2 vs No.5 for example. Otherwise they are just a load of random fights. Is Ajagba now the No.1 Zuffa heavyweight ? Is Charles Martin now number 15 ? Nobody knows. There's no narrative. There's got to be a story. There's got to be a ' here's who I want to fight next '. Until that happens it's not going to catch on at all, particularly if all the fights are in that soulless apex. I can't believe they'll have a British show as soon as May. There's got to be a reason for people to want to buy a ticket. Otherwise it's just a glorified small hall show.

 

I’d agree with this. And I know it’s not the most important thing, but aesthetically, it’s crap.

They need to bin off that Apex venue ASAP, horrible place that reminds me of what Top Rank and Queensberry did during Covid. That was fine then, but not in 2026.

It’s all so bland and sterile. 7 hour long shows, every fighter wearing the same template of shorts, a production line of fights one after another with absolutely no context behind them, it all sort of feels like watching a fancier version of the early stages of amateur tournaments, not something portraying itself as the future of the sport.

And I know everyone controls their own TV production these days, but the commentary is far up Dana’s jacksie and ‘this is what Zuffa is all about’, it makes your likes of Smith, Bellew and Barker look balanced.

For all Dana White bangs on about being a boxing fan, and how everything the sport has done for 35 years has been wrong, he’s sure taken whatever life and character the sport has, and replaced it with bland, shiny, corporate nothingness.

 

Good post. I’ve been struggling to understand the hype as it seems to me like glorified small hall unlicensed boxing.

edit. With the obvious conflict of interest, which makes corruption and fraud extremely easy and a wwe style of staging competition results quite beneficial to the company running things.

makes me think how easy and lucrative it is, does it happen in ufc now? As what would stop them other than their conscience?

 

Eurosport was awesome back then, so was probox which screened many good fights, Eubank snr included.

 

What you're basically describing is someone trying to break a cartel with a more honest operation.

Whilst there's no real barrier to anyone entering boxing and taking on Eddie, Frank, Oscar and whoever else comes along, they've all done their time with the 'sanctioning bodies' who make up ridiculous rankings. Fighters are ranked and fights mandated largely to help promoters out, not boxers.

You can understand why TKO (I can't stand the name "Zuffa" and can't believe it will persist) would want to do their own thing and not get invovled with the alphabet bodies. At a certain point a title is worth something because people perceive that it's worth something, and that shouldn't take long to establish with deep pockets and a few TV deals. It's no accident they signed up with Sky over here to gain maximum casual exposure.

 

Taking this stance, they could also do TKO Football, TKO cricket, TKO olympics. Everything just not under the current sanctioning bodies and bypass fifa etc.

 

Not quite the same people but LIV Golf was a similar tactic. You could imagine something similar in any sport with a large 'tour' field where certain stars think the prize money is spread too thinly.

 

With commentary from the legend Steve Holdsworth.

 

100% mate.