Zuffa Boxing will have its own belt and will NOT recognize the other bodies

What really caught my attention wasn’t the organization’s structure or policies but its name. They could have come up with something better. What does “Zuffa” even mean?

 

Ali made boxing colossal. Don King merely glommed onto him (and everyone subsequent HW champ he could get near).

I'll reserve further comment on Mr. King lest I be accused of elder abuse.

 

King has been one of the best promoters in history. In the 90-00’s his shows and tournaments brought us gold

 

Zuffa is Italian word to have a scrap/scuffle.

 

just one example, I will never get over the fact that DM and Roy Jones never fought. That would’ve been one of the best fights in a long time at light heavyweight and even though I think Roy Jones would’ve won, it would’ve been a stern test for him. It would’ve been one of the most popular fights in a long time at that weight class.

 

Dude! I cant find which fight it was, but HBO had their little table of potential matchups up for one of Jones´ fights, and of course it included guys like DM, Hopkins and whatnot. And basically none of the 8 or so fights happened. Roy had an open opportunity for true greatness and waved as it passed him by.
It was a little before the Ruiz fight, that much I remember, and I think Ruiz was on that graph.

This was well before my time, but damn its kinda unbelievable how HBO let Jones take so many pointless fights at 175 during that stretch before the Ruiz fight.

 

Robert Meriwether is super exciting

 

Everybody saying this is somehow going to fix boxing’s problems are missing the point. For boxing to operate more like a traditional sports league, you’d need a regulatory body and an independent commissioner overseeing the sport and working in the best interests of the league and its fighters. Last time I checked Rob Manfred and Roger Goodell didn’t own MLB and the NFL. They work for the league and the owners of each team. Dana White is essentially going to be judge jury and executioner when it comes to rankings, fight purses, and match making. He’s trying to change a law to serve his interest. I ultimately think this fails since boxing is too global a sport with too much money to be made for fighters to want to sign or stay with Zuffa long term.

 

Exactly

And go figure, Roy took harder fights AFTER he beat Ruiz and started sliding

His inner circle and team definitely helped him nosedive his career

He should have stayed at HW after Ruiz, handpicked top 10-20 guys at the weight that were on the smaller side, defended his title a handful of times and retired as a GOAT

Horrific management at that juncture for him

He could have feasted on smaller HW’s like Oquendo, Rahman, Byrd, Holyfield, Toney, Barrett, Meehan, Brewster, etc

None of those guys were huge, 220’s to 230’s, just like Ruiz, none particularly fast, at least none faster than Roy

What could have been for RJJ

The DM fight not happening was inexcusable for him, since it was at 175

 

We are going to find out a whole lot more about Zuffa and its attitude to the other belts on March 8th.

That's the date of Jai Opetaia, the reigning IBF and lineal cruiserweight champion's next fight and it is on a Zuffa card.

Assuming Opetaia fights at cruiserweight, logically his fight will automatically be for a Zuffa belt because he is the lineal champion. But...

....will his IBF title be on the line? Will the IBF strip him? Or will he fight at heavyweight to avoid all the red tape?

The politics look set to become a bit clearer come March 8th.

 

Like WWE. I already think they’re turning boxing a bit wwe at times

 

Spot on

I understand people’s frustrations when fights aren’t not made, however with boxing as a global sport it’s not always so simple to make the agreements to get the fights. It’s much easier when your on the same promotion company or network, but then people used to complain that fighters are only fighting “in house”.

UFC and zuffa plan to have a closed business model with good sales and marketing pitches.

Boxers tend to have a lot of personal pride and don’t often like being told they have to do things they don’t want…which is why big fights often don’t get made, both sides want it on their terms.
So it will be interesting to see how zuffa can reduce the freedoms of the boxers and get them to align with zuffas vision of what boxing is.

which fights have not been made?
Would zuffa be able to make them?
Does Dana make all the fights ppl want in ufc?

I dont think it will work and personally don’t wish for it to. I prefer freedom in the sport rather than a controlled company.
But I thought it may just be like contender or prizefighter were back in the day

 

It is my understanding that RJJ might have come back to HW after beating Tarver but then John Ruiz won the WBAs interim title meaning he'd have had to rematch Ruiz to keep his title. There was no point of doing that so he bounced. I agree RJJ had a window at HW but it was 2 years before Valuev came in. 2 or 3 fights there.

RJJ cleaned out the division besides DM who he fought much better opponents then. The blame for that fight not happening has to go to Darius. The only other top LHW RJJ failed to beat was Glen Johnson who didn't enter the picture until 2003. RJJ didn't choose to fight better opponents at the end the division got better. Besides the Darius fight what could RJJ have done different at 175? Even Richard Frazier RJJs worst title opponent was ranked number 1 by the WBC. Who could RJJs team have steered him towards instead? Rocchigiani was in Germany. Nunn was doing legal things.

 

No DM

No Hopkins rematch after he beat Trinidad and HBO tried to get them into the ring

 

So. His plan to fix the problem of boxing having too many champions is to bring another belt into the equation and create more champions.

Explain to me how this is going to make things better.