LAS VEGAS — UFC boss Dana White and boxing financier Turki Alalshikh will continue to collaborate beyond the UFC Noche show at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
World Boxing News has frequently spoken to White in recent months about its UFC Noche event, UFC 306, at the Strip’s newest $2.3 billion mega venue. Production costs have already spiraled to $20 million, White told us, yet the market-leading MMA firm offset this by bringing in Riyadh Season to sponsor the show.
White told WBN last week that UFC 306 card on September 14 — Riyadh Season’s third US show in as little as seven weeks — would likely be the first of many partnerships involving his company, and Alalshikh.
He was loath, though, to elaborate on what that partnership would look like, going forward, when we asked for more information.
At the UFC Apex on Tuesday, WBN again asked White about Alalshikh, and whether there was one area in particular that UFC could be of assistance to Riyadh Season — the rumored boxing league.
Having brought rival promoters Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn together, and through his sponsorship agreements with Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, a possible next step for Alalshikh is the creation of a boxing league that pits the biggest names in boxing against one another.
One WBN source with knowledge of the situation told us that Saudi Arabia hopes to make the concept a reality in 2025.
Could the UFC help Alalshikh with the creation of this boxing league, we asked White, under the TKO Group?
“Anything is possible,” he said, barely able to contain a smile, before ending the conversation.
It is the latest statement White has made regarding the possible future of TKO, the parent group for WWE, which is the market-leading pro wrestling firm, and UFC, which is, by far, the biggest player in the MMA industry.
When it comes to combat sports and sports entertainment there is a clear boxing-shaped hole at TKO.
We asked White in 2023 whether there’d be room for a boxing business at the $23 billion company, considering the power it has in boxing wrestling, and MMA, and he said yes.
Considering rising Irish super middleweight boxer Callum Walsh competes on Tom Loeffler’s 360 Promotions events, which UFC Fight Pass broadcasts, there is an obvious starting point to any boxing venture that TKO and White could launch.
White told us earlier in the summer that he gets behind Walsh because he’s a good kid, and that as a promoter he’s simply enjoying the ride.
Though he needs no second invitation to trash the sport of boxing, having spoken to him over the last three years in Las Vegas, it’s clear that if there’s a possible entrance into something considerable in the sport, then he’d get involved.
A boxing league in conjunction with Alalshikh may well be his gateway.
Alan Dawson is World Boxing News Lead Writer, a 2 x Sports Journalist of the Year finalist, and 5 x BWAA awards winner. Follow Alan @AlanDawsonSport.
