Dana White has always been crazy ambitious, and he proved it again when he started Zuffa Boxing. He wants to shake up the entire boxing world by running it just like the UFC, where one company calls all the shots. Working alongside WWE’s Nick Khan under TKO Holdings, the UFC CEO is trying to stop the promoter politics, force the best guys to fight each other, and build massive new stars.
At first, things looked great. Zuffa didn’t completely steal fighters away permanently, but they teamed up with other promoters to get huge names like Conor Benn and champion Jai Opetaia on their very first cards.
But the majority don’t like how Dana runs things. In UFC, fighters only get a tiny piece of the pie, around 15% to 20% of the money the company makes. In traditional boxing, elite fighters are used to taking home huge paychecks, sometimes getting up to 80% of the event money.
Right now, the 56-year-old is paying that competitive big money to get his foot in the door. But the big fear is that once he takes over boxing, he’ll slash fighter pay and turn it into another underpaid nightmare.
Bob Arum Drops Hammer on Dana White and Zuffa Boxing
The 94-year-old Bob Arum has been in boxing longer than most people in it have been alive. This week, the Top Rank founder and CEO had no interest in sugarcoating while calling Zuffa’s model an existential threat to fighter welfare.
“Dana White really is a cancer for boxing because you come in and you want to get rid of all the sanctioning bodies, and we know where that’s going to lead,” Arum said. “We know what happened with Dana White and the UFC, and how they made a lot of money by underpaying the fighters.”
Bob Arum: Dana White really is a cancer for boxing.pic.twitter.com/axRFgtVs4g
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) June 27, 2026
He added, “They just lost a lawsuit with $350 million. They’re about to lose another lawsuit for $400 million. Why? Because they pay their fighters peanuts, and they make all the money themselves. So if they got a foothold in boxing, in my opinion, it would be the same thing as far as the boxers were concerned. Initially, they’d make money, but ultimately, they’d be like paupers.”
While boxing regularly places stars like Canelo Alvarez and Jake Paul high on the Forbes highest-paid athletes list, UFC fighters rarely crack the top 50, even at the absolute peak of their fame. In fact, boxing’s immense earning power completely dwarfs what the UFC pays.
For example, superstar boxer Rico Verhoeven’s massive $15 million paycheck for a single fight was more than double what the entire UFC 328 roster made combined. Because of stuff like that, Arum has zero trust in how White treats fighters, even if everything looks good for now.
The Lawsuit Record That Backs Bob Arum’s Warning
In February 2025, a federal judge officially approved a $375 million settlement against the UFC. Former fighters spent ten years in court proving that the UFC used aggressive, unfair business practices to trap athletes in low-paying contracts and block them from testing the free market.
After a decade of fighting, over 1,100 athletes are splitting that money, averaging about $250,000 each. Meanwhile, a second massive lawsuit covering fighters from 2017 to now is still grinding through court and could cost the company even more.
This legal history explains exactly why people are terrified of Dana White entering boxing. He has already hinted that Zuffa Boxing wants to bypass traditional sanctioning bodies like the WBC and IBF to run its own league. When one company controls everything, fighters lose all their leverage to negotiate.
Moreover, TKO is backing a new piece of legislation called the Ali Revival Act. Right now, federal law forces boxing promoters to show fighters exactly how much money an event makes so they know if they’re getting ripped off. This new bill would completely exempt Zuffa Boxing from those transparency rules
