Dana White has given a defiant response to critics of his move to boxing for the promotion of Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The UFC boss has switched the Octagon for the ring this week and said he relishes the opportunity to compete as a promoter in boxing, while also issuing an emphatic reminder to those who may try to downplay his significance in the sport.
White said on The Jim Rome Show: “All you boxing guys out there that want to talk smack. Three of the biggest fights in boxing history: Pacquiao vs Mayweather, Mayweather vs McGregor and now Canelo vs Crawford.
“I have been a part of two of the three biggest fights ever in the history of boxing.”
It remains to be seen how successful Canelo vs Crawford will become, but it is certainly one of the most culturally impactful fights of this generation, and White has made an impressive transition to boxing under his Zuffa Boxing banner.
The Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor fight that White promoted registered 4.3 million pay-per-view buys in 2017, which made it the second most-watched fight in history, and White has also staged fights under his UFC banner, including Roy Jones Jr and rising star Callum Walsh.
It is not only fans who have White in their sights, as Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn also said he wants to go head to head with White in boxing.
Hearn said: “I want to compete against Dana White, I want to prove that I’m much better than him as a boxing promoter.”
White simply retorted: “I look forward to it too, Eddie, I can’t wait.”
White has big plans for his full-time foray into boxing, saying that he intends to reinstate the original weight classes and have only one champion in each division, following the UFC model that has become so successful in the last decade.
What he means by the original weight classes is yet to be made clear, but he wants to do away with the four belts and leapfrog any sanctioning bodies under one centralised matchmaking organisation that he claims wil reveal the “baddest dudes” in any given division.
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White told ESPN in March: “You know how you’re going to know who the champion is? Because they’re going to fight their way up through the gauntlet. And once you get into the top five, you know who the five baddest dudes in the heavyweight division are.
“And then you’ll find out who the champion is. WBC, IBF, WBA, etc, they deal with those traditional promoters that are out there right now; we’re not going to do that.”
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