What is Zuffa Boxing? UFC boss Dana White brings reasons for excitement and concern

What is Zuffa Boxing? A catchphrase of UFC president Dana White is, “If you don’t know, now you know,” and by the end of this article, you will know. Never mind the grating grammatical lapse in White’s slogan (“If you didn’t know, now you know,” is slightly less catchy but much more sensical), who are we to question the face of the UFC – and of Zuffa Boxing, the American’s new venture as he crosses the great combat-sports divide?

“Face of” is actually a very particular choice of words, as opposed to “mind behind”.

White, 56, has shared the responsibilities at the UFC since arriving in 2001, eight years after its inception, with friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta. While the Fertitta brothers exited the company in 2017, following its $4bn sale to WME-IMG (they had bought the company for just $2m), White remained. Since then, he has received the vast majority of the credit for the UFC’s success, despite receiving significant help from CBO Hunter Campbell, matchmaker Mick Maynard, and others.

And while some may question the degree of White’s responsibility for the UFC’s success, what is undoubtedly fair to question is his enthusiasm.

On Friday, his enduring machinations of beginning a boxing venture finally materialise, as Zuffa Boxing launches with a fight night in Las Vegas. White at least seems excited for this, while any enthusiasm he still has for the UFC hasn’t exactly been transmitted in his recent fight announcements (which come in the form of Instagram live videos on phone cameras, replacing the professionally-produced, big-fight-feel promos of the past).

And as much as fans are dismayed by White’s seemingly-dwindling passion for the UFC, if this passion really is dwindling, the dwindling would be somewhat understandable. The UFC merged with WWE to form TKO in 2023, and last year it signed a broadcast deal with Paramount+, which replaced ESPN on a seven-year contract worth $7.7bn; all of this is to say: White is a very wealthy man nowadays.

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So, it’s a little trickier to criticise him for turning his attention to a passion project in Zuffa Boxing (Zuffa was the name of the company that acquired the UFC under the Fertitta brothers). Zuffa Boxing launches with an event in the UFC’s Apex facility, a small venue space with limited room for fans, as Ireland’s Callum Walsh headlines.

While White has said Zuffa Boxing will not just be a competitor to the sport’s existing promotions, and that, “We’re going to blow them all out the water,” this launch event is far from inspiring.

Walsh is a talented, unbeaten prospect, and White has hitched his wagon to the 24-year-old, but the young Irishman has nowhere near the sort of profile to help Zuffa Boxing set the world alight, and the UFC’s clinical Apex room will not help either. After so much bluster from White, is this really the best that Zuffa could muster?

Well, there are some reasons to be cautiously excited, and other reasons to be concerned.

Firstly, Zuffa Boxing has just signed Jai Opetaia, the consensus best cruiserweight in the world and a true pound-for-pound talent. Furthermore, they are reportedly in talks to sign the greatest boxer walking the earth: Oleksandr Usyk.

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In truth, the Usyk talk feels like an easy way of generating buzz for Zuffa Boxing 1 on Friday, rather than anything likely to result in the new promotion signing the Ukrainian great.

Usyk, 38, parted ways with his longtime promoter Alex Krassyuk in 2025, so he is there to be signed, but at this stage of his career, it isn’t entirely obvious why he would join an upstart promotion – even one with significant financial backing – rather than work with trusted partners to get the last couple of big fights he wants before retiring. Still, it’s important to note that Turki Alalshikh is involved in Zuffa Boxing, and Usyk has plenty of experience working with the Saudi adviser – and making eyewatering sums of money while doing so. So, crazier things have happened in boxing.

But onto the concerning.

On Wednesday night, TKO’s version of the Ali Act comfortably passed the US House Committee on Education and Workforce. The fear is that this act, an amendment of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000, will see the UFC’s long-criticised fighter pay cross into boxing.

Furthermore, the act would allow the creation of Unified Boxing Organisations (UBOs), which would serve as alternatives to boxing’s current sanctioning bodies: chiefly the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association, World Boxing Organization, International Boxing Federation, and, to a lesser extent, International Boxing Organization. Just as those bodies have their own champions, so would UBOs. One UBO would be Zuffa Boxing.

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A reduction of the number of boxing world titles is actually something that many fans have long desired; fewer belts would mean a less-convoluted picture in each weight class. However, the UBOs were initially set to pay a minimum national compensation of $150 per round for professional boxers (a figure that might be seen as substantial by very low-level boxers, but pitiful by anyone else), and while an increase on this pay has officially been proposed, fans shouldn’t get their hopes up that it will improve drastically.

The bill will now move to the House floor, where it must pass with a majority, before it heads to the Senate and ultimately the desk of the US president, who happens to be a close friend of White. The above feels quite inevitable.

Zuffa Boxing is slowly but surely making the moves it needs to make politically, but can it deliver in a sporting sense? The signing of Opetaia suggests it might, but many fans are still justifiably sceptical. Yet the Australian’s role in all this is fascinating; Opetaia is the IBF champion but has failed to get a deserved bout with a fellow title-holder in his division, so has he accepted that one will never arrive? Signing with Zuffa Boxing, he could become the first ‘TKO champion’, on an island of his own.

So, there you have it. If you didn’t know, now you know.