Hall of fame boxing promoter Frank Warren has his say on Dana White’s latest combat sports venture – Zuffa Boxing.
Hall of fame boxing promoter Frank Warren has his say on Dana White’s latest combat sports venture – Zuffa Boxing.
A mainstay of the boxing scene in Britain with over 45 years as a licensed boxing promoter, Warren has been involved in some of the biggest fights in British boxing history. He has worked with iconic names such as ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe, Amir ‘King’ Khan and most recently ‘The Gypsy King’ Tyson Fury.
Often known as a ‘survivor’ for his ability to reinvent and adapt to the unforgiving nature of the sport and its broadcasting landscape, he is well placed to discuss any changes and new ventures in the sport of boxing.
In 2025 the Saudis penned a long term deal with TKO (parent company of both UFC and WWE) to launch their own boxing promotional outfit/league and build stars for the future – while also bringing the financial demands down and into a sustainable business model akin to the UFC.
To make this a reality, Turki Alalshikh has put his trust in Dana White, a man who has long spoken of his desire to enter the boxing world. White, who has long been the face of UFC has at every turn lambasted and criticised the way the sport of boxing has been run and intends to reform it from the ground up with his newly launched ‘Zuffa Boxing’.
Speaking to Steve Bunce on BBC’s 5 Live Boxing, Warren shared his thoughts on Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing.
“Well I don’t like their idea of only one belt because, we had that years and years ago and it just doesn’t work. But look, that’s his own vision and it’s not mine.
“I think that if there are multiple belts there, you get your unifications made. You find out who the real champion is as well as the governing bodies having their own independent rankings in place and that dictates who’ll be fighting who. You get your purse bids out on the open market and so on. Their vision is just to make it the UFC of boxing and hes a very clever, very astute man.
“The weights I totally disagree with and for very obvious reasons. I’ve been around a very long time and I’ve seen guys who struggled to make certain weights, I’ve seen deaths due to people suffering from dehydration. Thats the reason we had junior and super weight classes brought in to make certain fights a possibility. At the end of the day it’s about the boxers health and well-being.
“I don’t know what they’re offering fighters at the moment, until I see something myself I won’t know. I think they’ve announced 3 shows and from what I understand they’re all taking place in a little studio in their UFC training complex, so we’ll just have to wait and see”.
The veteran promoter has been very careful in his choice of words when discussing Zuffa and is waiting to see how they operate in their debut year before passing any deeper judgement.
Interestingly, Zuffa have already broken some of their own rules by signing RING & IBF cruiserweight world champion Jai Opetaia and are allowing him to fight in unfication bouts for other sanctioning bodies’ world championships. As Warren had already stated he believes unifications are important and one belt simply won’t benefit the sport overall in the long run.
He will be a keen observer of the movements Zuffa make within the sport this year and adapt if and when needed, as he as always done.
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