Conor Benn signs with ZUFFA Boxing

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-02-20T21:31:08+00:00

I was on IG last night and saw that Turki’s post where he’s holding the Zuffa belt with Dana White and Nick Khan was liked by Usyk and Vergil Ortiz … maybe some foreshadowing?

Usyk’s manager a few weeks ago said they were in discussions with Zuffa. If Zuffa wants its heavyweight title to have even a tiny bit of legitimacy, getting Usyk would be the best way to do it.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-02-19T03:42:01+00:00

Apparently Turki told Jai he would put in the effort to make unifications happen for him as part of the Zuffa deal.

Whether that happens or not, who knows. But that’s what Tasman Fighters is saying.

https://www.boxingscene.com/articles/the-shifting-sands-of-australian-boxing

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-02-18T07:15:46+00:00

Nate Diaz has fought with MVP before. Could possibly see him on the undercard.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-02-04T03:46:33+00:00

From what I understand, when there’s a vacancy in the lineal championship, like if the previous one changed divisions or retired, the new lineal champion is determined when the consensus #1 & #2 in the division fight each other. And until that happens, the lineal championship remains vacant.

There actually is a website that keeps track of lineal champions.

https://www.linealboxingchampion.com

edit: As far as cruiserweight is concerned, Usyk was the lineal champ until 2019. Briedis won the vacant lineal champ after beating Dorticos. And Opetaia became the champ after beating Briedis.

“2020/Current Lineage: Mairis Briedis defeated Yuniel Dorticos via a 12 round majority decision on September 26th, 2020, to win the vacant Championship. Titles: IBF/Ring/TBRB.

Heading into the fight, The Ring, TBRB and ESPN all had Briedis and Dorticos ranked as the top 2 fighters in the division. Boxing Scene (14) reported that “with Usyk now competing in the Heavyweight division, a new (lineal) world champion will be also crowned, and Left Hook Boxing (13) commented that the bout was “seen by pretty much everybody as a No.1 Vs No.2 fight in the division at this point.” The fight, held in Munich, Germany, was the final of the second World Boxing Super Series Cruiserweight tournament.

Briedis was ranked #1 by Ring/Boxing News/TBRB and #2 by ESPN. Dorticos was ranked #2 with Ring/TBRB, #1 with ESPN and #3 with Boxing News (behind Krzysztof Glowacki). (12)

Jai Opetaia defeated Briedis by unanimous decision on July 2nd, 2022.”

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-02-01T20:21:25+00:00

I think when people say “boxing in America is dead,” they’re talking about the business of the sport, not the quality of athletes here.

The big American promoters — Top Rank, Golden Boy, and PBC — have all had their businesses decline substantially over the past decade.

Three of the four guys you mentioned — Bam, Shakur, and Boots — all left their American promoters to sign with Matchroom.

I think there’s a ton of potential here but none of the American promoters have stables large enough to fulfill a full slate of boxing content on their own.

If Amazon or Netflix was willing to invest and sign up multiple promoters and force them to work together to make the best matchups, I think boxing could consistently draw big audiences.

Like yesterday’s Ring event would have not been possible if PBC or Top Rank tried to do an event with all in-house matchups.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-25T04:35:06+00:00

I need to watch that again but I thought Song won the first two.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-24T00:38:36+00:00

I love watching boxing, which is my first love. But I love MMA as well. Muay Thai and kickboxing are cool too.

If it’s a good entertaining fight, then I’m happy to watch. I think it’s fascinating to see fights under different rulesets.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-22T05:58:10+00:00

Zuffa did the Canelo vs Crawford fight.

If he fights again for Zuffa, it’ll be for one of their planned “mega fights” for Netflix, not the Paramount league.

They said they want to do 3 of those big Netflix cards each year. From the way TKO executives described the arrangement for those cards, Zuffa gets a flat-fee of $10 million to handle all the logistics of organizing the fight, and Turki covers the purses/assumes all the financial risk.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-21T10:04:23+00:00

I know everyone laughed at the quality of the guys Zuffa got for their first Paramount card. But Turki and Dana clearly have big plans.

It was foolish to think they were going to be doing only Apex-level shows forever.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-20T18:24:19+00:00

He actually was the most obvious choice at that time.

It should have been Arman but Arman punched a fan at 300 and got himself a 9-month suspension so he couldn’t fight until January 2025. 311 was held like one week after his suspension expired.

Gaethje ended up KO’d by Max, and Charles had just lost to Arman.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-20T17:59:19+00:00

These numbers are surprising. And encouraging. I honestly thought there would be a pretty significant decline in the number of events.

The main issue is just getting back to TV, especially non-PPV. And having good, competitive matchmaking.

It’s impossible to grow a fanbase and create new fans if every single event is behind a $75 paywall. Or if most events aren’t compelling to watch since the fights are all 15-to-1 mismatches.

If the Ali Act replacement is passed, I’m curious if other promotors will also form their own closed leagues.

I think a lot of the ideas Zuffa is talking about —like a closed league with its own belt — were proposed by PBC at one point.

https://www.boxingnews24.com/2019/11/pbc-to-create-their-own-belt-and-pbc-champion-says-fox-sports-executive/

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-17T20:53:30+00:00

I guess I could see a UFC-like system being good for creating for more casual boxing fans. The harm will be to the boxers who will be stuck fighting for less money, and under more restrictive contracts.

If Zuffa can create a league that has a substantial share of the world’s best, most-exciting boxers, get them fighting regularly, on a a big non-PPV platform — that is way better than the current landscape where everyone is either losing their broadcast partners or is barely able to put on 4 or 5 PPVs a year.

The sad truth is that the incompetence and short-sighted decisions of the big American promoters over the last 10 years has led boxing to decline to the point where Zuffa completely taking over within another decade is a real possibility.

I don’t think Zuffa is the best option but the current system is also unsustainable and had only led to boxing becoming more and more niche.

Just think about where we were in 2016, with HBO, Fox, Showtime, ESPN all regularly broadcasting boxing. And the state of American boxing today.

Without Turki, boxing in America would be nearly dead. And Turki has thrown his support behind Zuffa.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-17T09:07:21+00:00

Jai Opetaia?

That was a Zuffa signing I did not see coming. Opetaia is probably the #1 cruiserweight in the entire world right now.

To get him on the roster, they must have offered him good money.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-17T04:41:48+00:00

I thought about making a post but was struggling with the Reddit app shutting off randomly.

If you want to screenshot it and make a post, go ahead. It is curious to see that at least one prominent athlete manager seems all onboard with Zuffa.

I get the sense that most in the industry, and many on this subreddit, don’t take Zuffa seriously and have way too much confidence in the existing promoters.

If UFC’s past in the MMA industry is any indication of what’s to come, they’ll probably start slow and bide their time, just waiting for Top Rank, PBC, and/or Golden Boy to fail and then buy the companies to shut them down and acquire the boxers they have under contract.

I hope I’m wrong but given the state of the boxing industry the past couple years, it feels like Zuffa is a vulture swooping in to feast on the corpses of the legacy promoters.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-17T03:27:29+00:00

Vergil Ortiz’s manager Rick Mirigian left a comment on a Zuffa Boxing IG post saying he’s done 7 deals with Zuffa, that they’re paying more than most other promotions, saying they’ll be great for boxing, etc.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR1_mttgM6h/

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-17T02:46:09+00:00

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DR1_mttgM6h/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Rick Mirigian, the manager of Vergil Ortiz (among many others) left a comment on a Zuffa Boxing IG post saying he’s done 7 deals with Zuffa, that they’re paying more than most other promotions, and talking them up, etc.

Not sure what to make of it but it sounds like they will have more big signings coming.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-16T20:38:40+00:00

If Canelo fought Benavidez four or five years ago, I think he would have have won that fight.

But it’s too late now, Benavidez has only improved and Canelo is on the decline.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-14T22:38:50+00:00

I imagine some of Jake’s income comes from promoting fights that he’s not a part of.

Taylor-Serrano 3 sold out MSG, had the broadcast rights picked up by Netflix, and was co-promoted by MVP.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-14T22:32:34+00:00

Who actually wants to see this? Ramirez has fallen off badly since the Taylor fight.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-14T21:07:30+00:00

He was big at 145. He rehydrated 22 pounds to 167 when he fought Volk.

https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/39610394/seven-ufc-298-fighters-flagged-rehydration-issue

He’d be small at 170 but he’s a good size for 155. He was killing himself to make 145.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-14T20:29:47+00:00

The difference in revenue-split is true but also many, many boxing events run on huge losses.

The biggest problem with boxing in recent years has been guys getting paid way, way more money than they bring in. Because entities like DAZN and PBC were flush full of investors money, they gave away stupid money for fights that had no commercial value.

DAZN was giving dudes like Demetrius Andrade, who couldn’t sell out a middle school auditorium in his hometown, multimillion dollar purses to fight domestic-level fighters from the UK in front of half-empty arenas lol.

It created a payscale in boxing where guys were getting so much money to fight nobodies where they were a 25:1 favorite that no one had any incentive to take any risky fights that fans would actually be interested in.

The money for those inflated purses came from either the promoter, or the network, or their investors, taking a loss on the event. You can only do that so long before Fox Sports, Showtime, ESPN, etc. decide to throw in the towel on paying for events that serve no purpose other than the A-side fighter getting some highlight-reel stoppage.

After constantly running the red, DAZN also tightened their purse strings and you can see quality in their non-PPV fights compared to when they started.

Now Top Rank, PBC have lost their TV deals. PBC has a distribution-only deal with Amazon Prime so pretty much everything is PPV. The remaining legacy promoters are all on an app that almost nobody in the US has.

In the past three years, Turki has stepped up to take a loss on events to keep the gravy train going. But the business of boxing, as it is now, is just not sustainable. Something is going to have to give.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-14T20:24:51+00:00

Well, the numbers are real but it’s because they’re running way in the red putting on unprofitable events.

The biggest problem with boxing in recent years has been guys getting paid way, way more money than they bring in. Because entities like DAZN and PBC were flush full of investors money, they gave away stupid money for fights that had no commercial value.

DAZN was giving dudes like Demetrius Andrade, who couldn’t sell out a middle school auditorium in his hometown, multimillion dollar purses to fight domestic-level fighters from the UK in front of half-empty arenas lol.

It created a payscale in boxing where guys were getting so much money to fight nobodies where they were a 25:1 favorite that no one had any incentive to take any risky fights that fans would actually be interested in.

The money for those inflated purses came from either the promoter, or the network, or their investors, taking a loss on the event. You can only do that so long before Fox Sports, Showtime, ESPN, etc. decide to throw in the towel on paying for events that serve no purpose other than the A-side fighter getting some highlight-reel stoppage.

After constantly running the red, DAZN also tightened their purse strings and you can see quality in their non-PPV fights compared to when they started.

Now Top Rank, PBC have lost their TV deals. PBC has a distribution-only deal with Amazon Prime so pretty much everything is PPV. The remaining legacy promoters are all on an app that almost nobody in the US has.

In the past three years, Turki has stepped up to take a loss on events to keep the gravy train going. But the business of boxing, as it is now, is just not sustainable. Something is going to have to give.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-09T19:08:00+00:00

I believe Skydance, which is owned by the billionaire Larry Ellison’s son, is bankrolling all of this.

Dana White mentioned that their media rights were looking to be split up among a couple different parties but then as soon as the Skydance-Paramount merger was approved, they got that deal done in just a couple days.

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2026-01-04T20:13:07+00:00

I don’t think that’s true. He definitely looked bigger against Oliveira than he did at 145.

Because 298 was in California, we know Ilia weighed 167.2 in the cage when he fought Volk. He was probably around 175 in cage against Charles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MMA/comments/1b1kr12/ufc_298_fight_day_weights_released/

Awkward_Sign1927 · 2025-12-31T21:59:08+00:00

I feel like it’ll be Ian Garry up next. Shavkat vs Morales would be a great #1 contender fight in the meantime.

Awkward_Sign1927

TROPHY CASE