Surprise, surprise: Zuffa Boxing is a failure. 11 months in and no fighters signed.

[Phisher]

LOL @ Dana thinking that his act would fly without a captive talent base like he has in the MMA world. No prime, elite level boxer with any of potential as a draw would willingly subject himself to Dana's bullshit.

 

[ironfist05]

You're in the big leagues now Dana. Can't just bully around the competition.

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

I'm suspecting Dana wants to get into boxing because he's on his way out of the UFC. WME fired like half of the UFC staff and would have probably fired Dana if he didn't own a minority stake in the company. They might've had an agreement to keep Dana onboard for a few years before force-buying him out of his stake and hiring a better President. That's why Dana has all these shows aside from TUF.

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

Btw, any news from Ringstar - Schaefer's new promotion?

 

[Mr2urbo]

Best news ive heard in a while

 

[City_Lights]

So professional boxers didn't want to get paid in Reebok gear? Well this is surprising.

 

[randomg1t]

I'm suspecting Dana wants to get into boxing because he's on his way out of the UFC. WME fired like half of the UFC staff and would have probably fired Dana if he didn't own a minority stake in the company. They might've had an agreement to keep Dana onboard for a few years before force-buying him out of his stake and hiring a better President. That's why Dana has all these shows aside from TUF.

he doesn't own a majority stake. he owns 9% of zuffa, he sure as fuck doesn't own WME. i hate the clownpotamus as much as anyone, but what you're stating here is BS.

they could easily kick him out, and should. zuffa should've done it when they ran the show.

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

he doesn't own a majority stake. he owns 9% of zuffa, he sure as fuck doesn't own WME. i hate the clownpotamus as much as anyone, but what you're stating here is BS.

they could easily kick him out, and should. zuffa should've done it when they ran the show.

Yeah, I said "minority". Read again. And I don't think it's reaching to say that WME can't fire a guy who had a minority stake in Zuffa/UFC straight away. There would be negotiations involved.

 

[randomg1t]

Yeah, I said "minority". Read again. And I don't think it's reaching to say that WME can't fire a guy who had a minority stake in Zuffa/UFC straight away. There would be negotiations involved.

oh jesus, sorry mate. i swear i read the damn thing like 5 times, lol. don't know how i managed to read it wrong every time. my bad.

still, as influential as WME is, they could kick the bald fuck out if they really wanted to. but i suspect they like the screaming, swearing, fat bastard, and the way he runs the show.

i'd imagine his main issues with boxing is that the ali act prevents him half the shenanigans he pulls with the UFC, so he can't bully anyone into anything, and no real star wants to sign with a guy who they know for a fact is going to fuck them over. thank the gods.

 

[SuwoopBangin]

Good
We don't need dana's monopolistic bullshit in the boxing world
plus dana is a girl's name

 

[Cross_Trainer]

Not surprised that the boxing landscape kept him out. It's an entire ecosystem of natural selection for scheming promoters that's been swallowing up Dana Whites for the last 200 years.

 

[JayE]

It's stuff like this which really makes me suggests that Dana has always been a charlatan who has lucked his way to the top. No one anywhere could have possibly thought that ZUFFA boxing, with the plan that Dana laid out, could work.

 

[svmVR2097]

i figured he'd try something like buying PBC out from under Haymon and just rebranding it, that way he'd have a stable of fighters from the get go.

 

[ironfist05]

It's stuff like this which really makes me suggests that Dana has always been a charlatan who has lucked his way to the top. No one anywhere could have possibly thought that ZUFFA boxing, with the plan that Dana laid out, could work.

I mean, he's beyond delusional. If he really thinks fighters are going to forgo the big 4 titles for a UFC style circuit, he's out of his mind. Not only that, but boxers today demand a certain degree of respect in how they are treated and represented. We've seen how Dana treats his fighters. He'll pay them bottom dollar, even when they're super stars, shit talk them to the media, then hang them out to dry once he's lost his interest in them. Add the fact that he has zero boxing connections and he's clearly not the guy for this business.

On a side note, here's a little fun fact about Dana: he originally wanted to sell the UFC for pennies and not do TUF (which basically saved the UFC) in the early-mid 2000s until the Fertitta's ignored him and went through with it anyhow.

 

[Cross_Trainer]

I mean, he's beyond delusional. If he really thinks fighters are going to forgo the big 4 titles for a UFC style circuit, he's out of his mind. Not only that, but boxers today demand a certain degree of respect in how they are treated and represented. We've seen how Dana treats his fighters. He'll pay them bottom dollar, even when they're super stars, shit talk them to the media, then hang them out to dry once he's lost his interest in them. Add the fact that he has zero boxing connections and he's clearly not the guy for this business.

On a side note, here's a little fun fact about Dana: he originally wanted to sell the UFC for pennies and not do TUF (which basically saved the UFC) in the early-mid 2000s until the Fertitta's ignored him and went through with it anyhow.

It's interesting to speculate what the MMA landscape would look like today without TUF and the UFC's explosion that it helped fuel.

More of a niche sport, certainly. Pride would have already collapsed. Fedor' s reign would be remembered even more fondly than it is now. Lots of fighters probably stay around for longer, without the push of competition from below. And the UFC wouldn't have established a monopoly, so there wouldn't be any consensus on who the #1 guy is.

 

[mozfonky]

don't know what made him think he could do that, i've been around both and they are just totally different types of people, totally different. boxers are generally humble and decent, with the martial artists/mma'rs most of them are just grandiose and unbalanced. I could see most of the boxing people doing what I did, really just trying to keep my distance from those wierdos. It doesn't take long to get tired of that for non-bullshit type of people. Bottom line though, is, if he coulda offered good deals people would have taken it. He had the finances to do it presumably.

 

[treelo]

Yup, White trying to lowball fighters into signing fucking shitty deals when they have better shitty deals in place already

While the majority of boxers dont have the highest IQ, they have a lot more than your average MMA fighter...which is why this was never going to work

 

[XThe GreatestX]

Not really a suprise

The buisness model of
Paying fighters pennies and expectinng them to just accept it doesnt really work in boxing

 

[XThe GreatestX]

My issue ( and concern) with dana is that I am very skeptical as to how much of the UFC’s success was him and how much of it was Lorenzo

Dana is.....not really an asset to me tbh in the grand scheme of things. I don’t even really mind the brashness etc for the most part but I definitely think there are times to tone it down.

Lorenzo to me was always the brains. You ask anyone behind the scenes and they will tell you that when Lorenzo was there he was the guy setting up the tv deals, the marketing, the buisness structure etc.

dana was the promoter/figurehead. And hey thats totally cool, someone has to do it. But to me his value was never much. If they replaced him tommorow I am not sure anyone would care. He certainly is not some buisness genius.

So its no suprIse thatt this failed

 

[mozfonky]

My issue ( and concern) with dana is that I am very skeptical as to how much of the UFC’s success was him and how much of it was Lorenzo

Dana is.....not really an asset to me tbh in the grand scheme of things. I don’t even really mind the brashness etc for the most part but I definitely think there are times to tone it down.

Lorenzo to me was always the brains. You ask anyone behind the scenes and they will tell you that when Lorenzo was there he was the guy setting up the tv deals, the marketing, the buisness structure etc.

dana was the promoter/figurehead. And hey thats totally cool, someone has to do it. But to me his value was never much. If they replaced him tommorow I am not sure anyone would care. He certainly is not some buisness genius.

So its no suprIse thatt this failed

i've heard different things, that he turned around a failing company and all. But I never thought the ufc was actually unpopular, it was a fringe athletic competition, yes, and it still is. But, it was certainly popular or maybe the right word would be conspicuous because everyone seemed to know about it after the first couple ufc's but not a lot of people supported it. so, maybe i'm confusing the public knowledge of the organization with actual financial success. At any rate, it's very frustrating to see ineffectual men/organizations take credit for a success when I've seen firsthand how lazy they are. I often think of the old saying "even a stopped clock is right twice a day". If you look at a business model like the one that the music biz used to have (before the net) and you see that record companies would sign promising acts with the forsight and knowledge that less than 15 percent would actually succeed. So, they take credit for all the stars and don't even acknowledge all the failures. All they really did was take a guess, like throwing shit at a wall and witing for something to stick. How much credit can you really give them? and in the end, if they end up ruining 85 percent of the musicians career, should we give them any credit? It's an interesting question. Like a lot of things in life, there is a lot of randomness.