UFC and WWE to set up new boxing league with four ‘super-fights’ to be held
THE owners of the UFC and the WWE are on the brink of creating a new boxing league funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
UFC supremo Dana White teased the formation of Zuffa Boxing in the build-up to Conor McGregor‘s crossover clash with Floyd Mayweather in August 2017 but it never got off the ground.
But the MMA promotion’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, revived those grand plans with Saudi investors last year and are on the verge of announcing a potentially revoluntionary league.
TKO Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said: “Everybody knows we’re in talks with the Saudis but to give you a little more color.
“I will tell you that we are close on an agreement with the Saudis on a creation of a boxing league where we TKO would be the producer, the promoter and responsible for all day-to-day operations of the venture.
“Where by we would receive a fee of $10million plus. Again, we’re not putting any money in, we’re not putting any capital in, we’re not on the hook for any [costs].
“Additionally, we would have some earn-in equity per time, specifically over a five-year period but it would be dependent on us achieving certain milestones, including us exceeding board-approved annual budgets over that five years.”
The format of the proposed league is currently unclear, although Shapiro has revealed TKO will put on “four large scale super-fights” throughout 2025 and 2026.
He explained: “I think I’ve given you at least a framework of what the deal would be. It’s its own league and we’d have consistent fights throughout the year.
“I think on top of that you should know as part of the partnership, we would be the promoter, producer and event operator for four large scale kind of super-fights, as I call them, that would air probably two this year and two in [2026].
“Those may or may not fall into the boxing league itself, they may just be one offs, but we would be paid a fee to act as the promoter, the producer and the event operator.”
According to Shapiro, the groundbreaking deal could be confirmed imminently.
Shapiro revealed: “We’ve just sent a delegation to London to meet with the Saudi delegation led by Andrew Schleimer, our [chief financial officer] and Nick Khan, of course who runs WWE, and Lawrence Epstein who runs UFC.
“They had a full day meeting earlier this week and we’re getting awfully close and when we have something official, we’ll come out [with the news].”
The millions at the disposal of Saudi Arabia‘s General Entertainment Authority has changed the landscape of boxing over the last three years, with fights that were seemingly once-thought impossible being made at the drop of a hat.
And Shapiro believes the promotional power possessed by TKO can further revolutionize the sport.
He said: “There’s an audience for boxing and there’s a dearth of boxing on the national platform.
“There’s a desire to have it back in the forefront of the American sports ecosystem.
“It’s just been broken for too long, it’s been fragmented, it’s been poorly managed and we think we can do a lot with it.”