Teddy Atlas welcomes Dana White to boxing.
The UFC CEO has never minced his words when it comes to his feelings about how corrupt he thinks the boxing model is. After dancing around the idea of “Zuffa Boxing” for years, White finally decided to commit to his involvement in the sport.
Atlas thinks White’s presence would only add value to what Turki Alalshikh has already built.
“I say come on in – come on in, we need you,” Atlas told Submission Radio. “Turki Alalshikh has helped boxing tremendously by making fights the promoters couldn’t make. They didn’t want to make (them) because they didn’t own both sides. They didn’t control both sides, so the fans suffered, didn’t get the fights they wanted. The sport suffered. This sport was getting less and less relevant. This sport is the longest sport in the history of sports. They find drawings of guys throwing punches on caves two thousand years ago. This sport shouldn’t be irrelevant, but it was becoming that because of the promoters with the networks, with their sugar daddies.
“They were just making the fights to keep their guys undefeated, to get to the next big fight – non-competitive fights, and every once in a while they threw you a bone. It wasn’t enough. The fans were starving. Then Turki Alalshikh came along from Saudi (Arabia) with the money, and in the last year he made fights that the sport needs. Dana White does that. He’s been doing that forever over at the UFC. Yeah, I know it’s one guy in charge and people call him a dictator. Listen, if a dictator ain’t chopping heads off and he’s getting things done, sometimes maybe we could learn a little something. We could use rules in this (boxing) world right now. We could use a direction in this world right now. He’d make the fights that you’d need to make.”
Atlas also defended fighter pay in the UFC, and the constant critique White has gotten from the likes of Jake Paul.
“Yeah people will say, ‘What are people going to get paid?’ UFC, he created a hell of a brand, and it wasn’t a complicated formula: Make the fights that people want to see, and the brand will grow because the fans will grow it,” Atlas said. “People say they don’t get paid. It is trickling down. The stars are being born, They’re making the bigger money. Same thing in boxing, but then it starts to trickle down. Yes, I want everyone paid, but when you build something, there is more to give then. Then it will trickle down, then it will go to all the other fighters on the totem pole.
“The bottom line is, the brand will be stronger. The brand of boxing has become stronger because of Turki Alalshikh making these fights. It will become stronger in a more spread out way if maybe the two of them join together. If Dana White brings his model into boxing, to have the infrastructure, to have enforcement of rules, to have the kind of fights that people want, that people have only been getting in the last year. If he brings that, and he would bring that, Teddy would say, ‘Hey Dana, come on in this way. Welcome. Welcome.'”
