In the latest episode of Frank Warren’s Heavyweight Podcast, UFC President Dana White has launched into a tirade about the state of boxing and declared: “The sport is a sh*tshow!”
Both promoters agreed that boxing needs to take the UFC’s lead in matching the best fighters against one another more often, with hall-of-fame promoter Frank Warren hailing Wilder vs Fury and, the now postponed, Dubois vs Joyce as examples of how he tries to do just that.
White, however, bemoaned the number of people involved in putting Wilder/Fury together and claimed “that fight should have been in England.”
He added: “Wilder vs Fury should have been in the UK. I think you’d have done 100,000 people at Wembley or one of those big stadiums.”
White has been rumored for some time to be readying a move into boxing under the ‘Zuffa Boxing’ umbrella but seemed to distance himself from any such move.
“Instead of diving in head first, I’ve been taking my time and it seems the more the sport continues to go on, the more f*cked up it becomes!”
“I thought I knew, but you don’t really know until you’re in how f*cked up the sport really is. The sport is a sh*tshow.”
He added: “It’s hard to articulate to you how messed up this thing really is.”
Frank Warren launched a full-throated defense of boxing, though, and said: “I’ve been doing this a long time… time and time again events generate record revenues, boxers are some of the highest-paid athletes in the world.”
Frank also backed the success of Wilder vs Fury as an event and said it had a “real feelgood factor for British boxing.”
He added: “It was great working with Top Rank, Al Haymon’s company (PBC) and MTK in getting the whole thing together and I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.”
The two promoters, who are friends in real life, enjoyed a wide-ranging chat that spanned topics as diverse as President Trump, Nelson Mandela, Mike Tyson, UFC 249 and the effect of the current coronavirus on event promotion.
Both promoters agreed that they were eager to get moving again with shows, as and when they were given the all-clear.
Warren said: “The fighters… want to fight and the public want to be entertained.”
He added: “But obviously It would be great to get something together!”
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