TKO Group Holdings \u2014 the parent company to the UFC \u2014 officially kicked off a move into boxing by promoting the showdown between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford this past weekend in Las Vegas, but that\u2019s merely the first step with much grander plans in mind.<\/p>\n
The launch of Zuffa Boxing is coming in 2026 with hopes that the new venture can use UFC-style promotion to build a roster, create rankings and championship belts for the fighters under contract. A lot of those plans hinge on the approval of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act <\/a>\u2014 a new law proposed in Congress that effectively alters current rules that prevent promoters from serving as managers and protects fighters from exploitative practices when it comes to contracts, salaries and other key issues involved athletes competing in the sport.<\/p>\n Matt Brown, who spent 16 years competing in the UFC, believes that law being approved clears the way for a promotion like Zuffa Boxing to potentially put a stranglehold on the sport, especially where the fighters are concerned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big issue is what they\u2019ve done with the UFC is they\u2019ve monopolized the sport,\u201d Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cThis is why you see guys we\u2019ll say a couple of weeks ago when [Carlos] Prates was begging for his friend to get a shot in the UFC. You see guys like me, I\u2019m guilty of it, like \u2018can I get that $50,000 bonus, please? Please master?\u2019 That\u2019s not the way it\u2019s supposed to work and the reason it doesn\u2019t work that way in boxing \u2014 you\u2019ve never heard a single boxer in my lifetime beg the promoter for anything \u2014 because of the thing called the Ali Act, which the UFC is trying to revise, which actually means destroy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a good thing. People think it\u2019s going to be a good thing but when you have a single entity controlling rankings, controlling titles, that\u2019s not a good thing for boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n The UFC is currently facing several antitrust lawsuits based around allegations that the organization operates as a monopoly over the sport of MMA.<\/p>\n Amid disclosures and discovery provided by evidence, UFC financial records showed that athletes typically receive between 16 to 20 percent of the total revenue earned by the promotion. That\u2019s in stark contrast to leagues like the NFL and NBA where athletes are contractually obligated to earn around 50 percent of the revenue, which largely comes due to collective bargaining agreements made with unions.<\/p>\n A huge part of the argument against the UFC is how the promotion is able to lock up athletes in longterm contracts while also maintaining almost unchallenged control over the sport because of the size and reach of the organization. Many of the UFC\u2019s business practices when it comes to exclusive contracts, rankings and titles wouldn\u2019t be allowed in boxing but that changes if this new proposal is signed into law.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UFC is making good money,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe fighters are making, you could say making millions of dollars is making good money, which it is, but when you\u2019re making someone else $100 million and you\u2019re making $10 million, you\u2019re not making good money.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there\u2019s a single entity with a monopoly controlling who gets that payday, that\u2019s when it becomes a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown points specifically to a couple of phrases UFC CEO Dana White uses often when addressing athletes competing in the promotion that he didn\u2019t mind while he was competing but later realized the troubling reality behind those words.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Dana said this is not a career, this is an opportunity \u2014 that is so wrong,\u201d Brown said. \u201cLooking back on that, I\u2019m like that is so f*cking wrong. Basically, you have an opportunity to use the UFC brand that we\u2019re going to give you to push yourself. I can\u2019t hate on it. It created opportunity for me. I\u2019m sitting here doing this podcast because I was a UFC fighter, not because I\u2019m the most interesting man in the world. I get that. But it should be able to be a career. You should be able to make retirement money if you\u2019re that good of a fighter.<\/p>\n \u201cDana also uses this \u2014 you eat what you kill. That is so false. You eat what we give you. If Conor [McGregor] goes out and sells 5 million pay-per-views, he doesn\u2019t get what he killed. He promotes the shit out of it, does all the media, he doesn\u2019t get what he killed. He gets what the UFC says you can have, which might be $10 million while the UFC takes $80 or $100 million. How is that eating what you kill? That\u2019s Dana eating what you killed.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Brown understands the frustration that many boxing fans feel when it comes to missing out on some of the biggest fights in the sport because warring promoters can\u2019t come to an agreement on certain matchups.<\/p>\n But he believes the problem far outweighs the solution when it comes to bringing UFC-style promotion to boxing.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the fans, they see all the bullshit in boxing, and they\u2019re like \u2018they\u2019ll come in and fix it!\u2019 That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to pitch to you, that they\u2019re going to come in and fix it,\u201d Brown said. \u201cYou\u2019ll get to see the fights you want. But ultimately when you break it down, there\u2019s no way that the pay stays the same.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, the way boxing works and the reason Terence [Crawford] got $50 million and Canelo got $150 million, which was the [rumored salaries] that I saw. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s totally accurate, I think that\u2019s right. It\u2019s because the promoters are fighting for the boxers. That\u2019s because of the Ali Act. With this revision act, they want what the UFC is. Fighters begging for the promoters or working for the promoters. In boxing, the promoters work for the boxers.\u201d<\/p>\n With Zuffa Boxing poised to launch early next year, Brown can\u2019t say for certain what\u2019s going to happen to the sport, especially if the new rules proposed in Congress actually gets signed into law.<\/p>\n Brown just knows from personal experience that as much as he praises the UFC for becoming the biggest and best combat sports promotion on Earth, that doesn\u2019t always end up benefitting the athletes under contract.<\/p>\n \u201cI always have to preface this with one thing: I\u2019m not hating on the UFC,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI don\u2019t hate Dana White or the UFC. They built a brilliant business.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a good model for the athletes, for the fighters that are working their asses off. That\u2019s really what we are. We\u2019re a bunch a fighting dogs begging for scraps.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on <\/strong>Apple Podcasts<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>Google Podcasts<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>Spotify<\/strong><\/a>, and <\/strong>iHeartRadio<\/strong><\/a>0 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TKO Group Holdings \u2014 the parent company to the UFC \u2014 officially kicked off a move into boxing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,1501,146342,196,79,5706,12137,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-429327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-latest-news","11":"tag-mmaf-podcast-network","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115214962138336711","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}