Dana White, the man who transformed mixed martial arts into a multi-billion dollar industry as CEO and president of the UFC, is now setting his sights on boxing. He's using boxing’s “fight of the year” to launch his new promotion company.
For years, White has been a vocal critic of boxing, arguing that it was broken and often claiming he would step in to rescue the sport, only to retreat after concluding it was “too broken” to fix. Now, however, his renewed interest - fueled by his partnership with Turki Alalshikh - has White fully committed to pushing ahead with Zuffa Boxing. You’ll likely see White featured throughout the Canelo Alvarez (63-2-2) vs. Terence Crawford (41-0) fight, streaming worldwide on Netflix Saturday night.
Dana White Wants To Hit the Ground Running in the New Year
White promises an all-out push next year, launching his own boxing version of the “Contender Series,” a reality competition show surrounding the UFC, to act as a feeder system for Alalshikh’s larger boxing promotion.
“Basically, in 2026, I’m going to start my show, and what I’m going to do is basically like ‘Contender Series,'” White told Vegas PBS earlier this week. “The best will fight the best, undefeated guys will fight undefeated guys, and what you will do is you will care about the first fight of the night, and not just the main event. So I will build stars, put on great fights, and then these guys will graduate and fight with Sheik Turki.”
For White, the ultimate aim is to transform boxing into a unified combat sports league, much like the UFC, with a clearer ranking system and fairer title opportunities.
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What we did with the UFC is turn the UFC into an NFL, an NBA,” White said. “There’s a league, you reinvest into the sport, and other people want to invest in the sport, whether it’s sponsors or any of these financial firms, whatever it may be. Congress, which ultimately regulates the sport and its business practices.
Turki Alalshikh: Dana White’s Partner
Another face that has become familiar at fights is the man White is jumping into business with, Alalshikh. Alalshikh is a Saudi Arabian sports promoter and royal adviser.
As Saudi Arabia’s General Minister for Entertainment, Alalshikh and the General Entertainment Authority have been tasked with developing, promoting, and expanding tourism and entertainment across the Kingdom.
Dana White clarified Sunday afternoon that Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford will have the entire fan base of combat sports to themselves when they enter the ring Sept. 13 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
The UFC president/CEO and promoter of Alvarez-Crawford announced during their press conference at Javits Center in New York that their 12-round, 168-pound championship showdown won’t be streamed on Netflix at the same time ESPN+ streams the main event of UFC Noche 2025. White didn’t specify the times that Alvarez-Crawford and the main event of UFC Noche 2025, which hasn’t been announced, will begin.
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“I’ve always had this theory that if you can get people to stay home on a Saturday night,” White said, “and you put on two great fights the same night - we have UFC Noche that night, and I know that there’s a lotta questions about this. The main events, the main cards, will not cross over.
“You’ll be able to watch one right into the other, so to be part of a historic night on Mexican Independence Day - I love it. I feel very blessed to be here. Thank [Turki Alalshikh] and both fighters up here. It’s gonna be a great night, historic night of fighting.”
Alalshikh dismissed rumors during the first Alvarez-Crawford press conference Friday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that Alvarez and Crawford would fight on the afternoon so that it wouldn’t conflict with UFC Noche 2025.
UFC Noche 2025, also known as UFC Fight Night 259, will take place at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. That event, which coincides with UFC’s annual celebration of Mexican Independence Day, was originally set to be held in Alvarez’s hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Alvarez, boxing’s biggest star in the United States, often fights around the time of Mexican Independence Day (Sept. 16). The four-division champion has fought on or around that date eight times since 2011 - six times in Las Vegas, once in Arlington, Texas, and once in Los Angeles.
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Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), of Omaha, Nebraska, will challenge Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) for his Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO super middleweight titles. Alvarez, 34, is a slight favorite to defeat Crawford, 37, in a fight that will be streamed to more than 300 million Netflix subscribers worldwide.
Crawford could become an undisputed champion in a third weight class, unprecedented during boxing’s four-belt era, if he pulls off a mild upset against Alvarez.
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Terence Crawford and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez battled in one of boxing’s premier events, with “Bud” emerging as a three-time undisputed champion in front of 70,000 on-hand spectators, and some 30 million more at home.
The gate? A whopping $47 million. These numbers barely compute for MMA lovers. Boxing at its best is in a galaxy of its own, which is why the face of the UFC, Dana White, has finally come over to the other side.
And so that’s how the self-proclaimed “golden era of boxing” kicked off. With the 37-year-old Crawford moving up two weight classes to stun boxing’s great centerpiece, "Canelo," in what can only be described as a masterclass performance.
It was the footwork. It was the hand speed and the counters. It was the ring IQ and the angles and the preternatural balance that got the job done for Crawford, but it was also that he didn’t shrink from such a big moment. In the fight game the hurdles are so often psychological, and an event of this magnitude has a way of bringing out the truth.
The truth is that Crawford is him. He’s the whole truth and nothing but, just as he showed against Errol Spence a couple of years back in a fight that set the stage. The fight against the bullish Israil Madrimov 13 months ago may have thrown things a little off-center, but watching Crawford touch "Canelo" up with light-switch quick combos brought it all back into focus.
Crawford is never going to set a microphone on fire, but perhaps there’s something to be said for the preservation of mysteries when you fight like that.
It's an old cliché, but "Bud" does his talking in the ring.
With the fight broadcast on Netflix, it really did feel like boxing was giving away something. Fights of this magnitude aren’t generally made, and when they are they slip so elegantly behind a paywall. Yet this is the new era. The Zuffa Boxing era. The tuxedos were for everyone. Among the ringside onlookers were Turki Alalshikh, who was seated expansively in ringside view, often posing for pictures. Next to him, UFC CEO White, looking second fiddle to the flowing fabrics around him.
Remember, when Dana and the Fertitta brothers bought the UFC, the first thing it did was run away from boxing’s model. The UFC wanted to do away with pageantry and the slow pacing and - if we’re being honest - the scorecards. Yet there he was, sitting through these very ceremonies as a stranger in a familiar land, in an outsized stadium that he’s actively avoided. So much of what Dana hates is what boxing has always loved. Drawn-out entrances. Nuanced fighting. A million people in the ring at fight’s end.
As with all things in these blockbuster boxing events, gratuitousness is just part of the shindig. White, who for years has controlled UFC production down to the walkout songs, was forced into a bystander role as it played out. Back in the day he would gather all the fighters on a given card and encourage them to leave it all in the Octagon, to not leave things in the judge’s hands. What he wanted was explosive finishes. Don’t go in for subtleties, as nothing good comes of that.
Yet there was Callum Walsh, White's first big infatuation in the ring, outpointing Fernando Vargas Jr. over 12 rounds in the co-main. There was "Bud" Crawford, sensing the tide turning in the fifth round against a puncher like "Canelo," ratcheting it up in the sixth to redirect the momentum. If the UFC was built on dynamite levers, boxing of this kind is built by brushstroke. All the pageantry only disguises the genius of its subtleties.
White put the belt around Crawford’s waist, amid a swirl of human commotion that he would never go for in a UFC Octagon. This was his foray into boxing, a sport that existed long before he got there, and won’t easily conform.