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September
| BJPenn.com

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO, Dana White, and TKO Group Holdings, Inc. and Saudi’s General Minister for Entertainment, Turki Alalshikh, signed a massive deal earlier today (Wed., March 5, 2025) to form a new boxing league.

While details are still trickling in as to how exactly the new league will look like, White is adamant that his format to pump new life into boxing is no secret: “The best will fight the best.”

“There is zero speculation about the format. You know the format, everyone knows the format, the best will fight the best. You work your way up the rankings and once somebody breaks into the Top 5, there will be no question who the best five guys in the world are in each weight class and they fight it out,” he told Ring Magazine.

“Once somebody holds that belt, you don’t need three letters in front of the belt; whoever has that belt is the best in the world at that weight class. It’s a very simple model,” he added, before Alalshikh chimed by revealing it will be White’s show to run.

“I support him with everything. This is his call now and it is now his responsibility to deliver the people and the fans the best model of boxing.”

During an interview on ESPN’s First Take, White said one of his goals is to not complicate things the way it currently is in boxing, with so many titles across multiple divisions and organizations.

“You get rid of all the five different champions in five different sanctioning organizations. One, it will just be one,” he added.

As far is talent is concerned, White said he and his team have already begun the work to scour new talent across the globe.

“There is a lot of talent that we have been looking at right now that no one knows about. What I would love to do is build this thing from the ground up like we did UFC. When we bought the UFC, we had 12 contracts and nobody knew who anybody was.”

Aside from putting on great fights, the UFC boss said his plans are to also provide fans in attendance with a great experience, as well.

“My son just went to that show (Tank vs. Roach), and he said the live event was terrible and disorganized. We are going to clean that up and make events great again. The run of show will run faster, and it won’t take nine hours to see four fights.

“These guys have a fight, put on a podcast, then have another fight, then another podcast. The show will run like UFC does, fight after fight after fight,” he added before saying his team are currently looking to lock down broadcast deals.

“We will build the sport of boxing here in the United States again. To really grow the sport it has to be strong in the US for it to work anywhere.”

While White has a proven track record with mixed martial arts (MMA), it’s two completely different scenarios when it comes to boxing. White and the Fertitta brothers were able to mold the sport of MMA and UFC into the powerhouse it is today in their image because, let’s face it, it was a new sport on its last leg when they purchased it back in 2001.

Boxing, meanwhile, has been around since the 1920’s and is established. While White isn’t looking to re-invent the wheel, his goal is to put on fights that fans want to see. That said, there is a ton of competition out there with so many boxing promoters who have been doing this all their life such as Goldenboy, Matchroom Sport, Top Rank, Mayweather Promotions, Premier Boxing Championships and the list goes on and on.

And we don’t have to mention that they have all the big name talent at the moment.

So, unless White and Co. are open to co-promoting, something he is totally against in MMA, he has a very steep hill to climb if he ever wants to reach their level. Then again, if anyone can do it it’s White with the backing of Alalshikh’s deep pockets.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

The groundbreaking deal between UFC CEO Dana White and Saudi Arabia combat sports promoter Turki Alalshikh to bring TKO Group Holdings over to the boxing world could open the door for Alex Pereira to box heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in the squared circle, and “Poatan” reaffirmed his interest.

Pereira defends his UFC light heavyweight belt Saturday in Las Vegas against Magomed Ankalaev, and reacted to Wednesday’s stunning news during the UFC 313 media day.

“I jumped for joy when I saw the announcement,” Pereira said in Portuguese. “Maybe September. Saudi Arabia.

“I was the first to show interest, and then Usyk showed interest. And now we have to see the interest of the organizations. I’ll be ready.”

The only time the UFC has agreed to partner with a boxing entity for a special event was when Conor McGregor, a two-division UFC champion at the time, set up a boxing spectacle against Floyd Mayweather. “The Notorious” lost via stoppage in the 10th round, but amassed 4.3 million domestic pay-per-view buys — one of the biggest selling cards of all time —and earned hundreds of millions in profits.

White downplayed his interest in UFC fighters crossing over to his new boxing venture during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show saying “I literally don’t want to see any of that” but he also once said there was no chance McGregor would engage in a boxing match against Mayweather.

The added interest in the fight also comes Usyk serving as the current heavyweight champion, whereas Mayweather was retired for nearly two years before facing McGregor. But the Brazilian doesn’t know if his potential match against Usyk could actually surpass Mayweather vs. McGregor in terms of commercial success.

“It’s hard to answer,” Pereira said. “We know of the popularity of those two, and I’m coming. I’m on my path, I’m coming, but I still think I’m one step behind them in terms of media, so I don’t know how it would be.”

That said, “Poatan” believes he’s now the face of the UFC at the moment given his success both inside and outside the octagon and that only helps his cause.

“I think so,” Pereira responded when asked if he’s become the face of the promotion. “I’m a very active fighter, last year was a very successful year, so I think my name is being talked about, I’m on the media with good results, so I believe [I am the face of the UFC].”

While Pereira reaffirmed he’s fully focused on defending his belt Saturday against Ankalaev, reaching his fourth title defense at light heavyweight, he’s definitely keeping his options wide open for the future.

“I want to defend my belt, that’s my focus, but we definitely have options,” Pereira said. “A fight with Dricus [Du Plessis at 205 pounds] or Jon Jones at heavyweight, or boxing Usyk. These are things that are in my mind, and I think these three options are possible.

“It doesn’t depend on me, I don’t have that control. Whatever the UFC says I have to do, I’ll do.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Magomed Ankalaev knew accepting a title fight against Alex Pereira at UFC 313 on March 8 was going to require some sacrifices because the date falls one week into Ramadan.

The holy month observed by Muslims across the globe requires fasting from dawn until sunset — avoiding all food and water during daylight hours. While none of that affected his preparation getting ready for the fight, Ankalaev admits he’s been forced to break the fast as he gets ready to cut down to 205 pounds on Friday for his fight against Pereira on Saturday.

“If we’re talking about the training or the training camp, the preparation, that was done before Ramadan,” Ankalaev said during UFC 313 media day on Wednesday. “So there was no issues with that. The only thing that we had to change is because the week of the fight is Ramadan, what I had to do was I had to break a couple of fasting sessions because I have to drink a lot of water in order for me to be able to make the weight. Other than that, everything is the same.”

Of course, Ankalaev has also heard Pereira chirping about food being delivered to his room, although that didn’t necessarily mean the Russian actually ate anything while he was observing the fasting rules for Ramadan.

For his part, Ankalaev can’t help but wonder if Pereira is already showing his hand by making all these comments that really shouldn’t matter much to him just days away from their fight.

“He’s obviously really worried about me and what I’m doing,” Ankalaev said. “He seems to be nervous. He’s following all these things. Like what can I say? I’ll tell you again. I had to break the fast a couple of times because there’s something I need to do in order to make the weight and in order to be prepared. He seems to be way too concerned with that.

“Even if he goes to a fridge right now and he opens the food, he’ll see that there’s food with my name on it, the UFC food that was given to me. If he wants it, he can take it.”

Beyond his jabs about Ankalaev observing the rules of Ramadan, Pereira also recently suggested a wager between them about the fight where the loser would pay $ 200,000 to a charity of the winner’s choice.

For all the ways Pereira seems to know the ins and outs when it comes to observing Ramadan, Pereira can’t help but remind him that another tenet of Islam is that Muslims aren’t allowed to gamble.

That’s why Ankalaev suggested just straight up donating to charity instead rather than attaching some bet as a condition for giving back.

“We were really clear about it online, we said as Muslims we cannot do bets,” Ankalaev said. “That’s not something that we support or that we look to do. However, if he wants to do something, any kind of charity or anything that he wants to do, we have the means to do it and I’d be happy to partake in that.”

Part of Pereira’s decision to go after Ankalaev regarding the way he practices his religion might come back to some concerns the Russian had about the light heavyweight champion potentially losing focus ahead of their showdown on Saturday.

With his title defense just weeks away, Pereira traveled to Australia to corner Sean Strickland in his fight against Dricus du Plessis not to mention conducting other business while he was overseas as well as spending a few nights out rather than extra time in the gym.

While Pereira may have taken past comments as a slight, Ankalaev promises that’s not the case and if anything, he was actually just showing concern for the UFC light heavyweight champion.

“We weren’t trying to make it personal or anything,” Ankalaev said. “We were just saying maybe we were worried about him that he’s kind of all over the place, all these different UFC events and stuff like that.

“Maybe he should have taken it as us being worried about him spending time doing something rather than being prepared for the fight. Whichever way he took it, it’s up to him. It’s not going to help him or make it worse.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

The wait for Jon Jones to return to action may be sooner than later.

On Wednesday, UFC CEO Dana White revealed his expected timeline for Jones to return to action and defend his heavyweight title after a lopsided win over Stipe Miocic this past November. While Jones hasn’t fully committed to any fight since then, White is confident that he’ll get a deal done to put him in the octagon against interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall in a title unification bout.

“The plan is to fight Jon this summer,” White told The Jim Rome Show. “Obviously, when, where and all that stuff is being determined. My goal this year is to make that fight [with] Aspinall.”

A potential wrinkle to those plans could come this weekend when Alex Pereira defends his light heavyweight title against Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC 313 main event.

A win would serve as Pereira’s fourth straight title defense and there wouldn’t be a lot of new challenges left for him at 205 pounds.

In fact, Pereira has already teased a potential move to heavyweight, but White says he’s actually behind hitting the pause button the Brazilian changing divisions again after conquering middleweight and light heavyweight.

“The other thing about Pereira that everybody loves is, this guy wants to go up to heavyweight and fight at heavyweight, too,” White said. “I’m the one that’s actually holding him back on that.”

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to Pereira moving up to heavyweight is White’s determination to book Jones against Aspinall before anything else.

White vows that’s the fight he wants to make most right now but assuming Jones battles Aspinall in 2025, he won’t discount the possibility that Pereira could then position himself for a massive showdown in his heavyweight debut.

“He wants to [fight Jon Jones],” White said about Pereira. “Let’s see how this fight plays out, if he wins, how he wins, all that kind of stuff.

“I think that the fight that everybody wants to see right now is Jones and Aspinall and then there’s no doubt that Pereira could fight the winner.”

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False Narrative
| BJPenn.com

Alex Pereira may be one victory away from cleaning out the 205-pound weight class.

In addition, defeating No. 1-ranked contender Magomed Ankalaev atop the UFC 313 pay-per-view (PPV) event on Sat. night (March 8, 2025) inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, could leave “Poatan” ranked as “the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world.”

That’s according to UFC CEO Dana White.

“He’s one of the biggest stars in the sport right now, if not the biggest star in the sport,” White told ESPN’s First Take. “What makes this weekend so great is Ankalaev is a very serious threat to him. It’s probably the toughest fight he’s ever had. His team always talks about his takedown defense and that the fans don’t really know how good it is. We’re going to find out how good it is this weekend. This is a tough fight for Alex. If Alex comes out of this the way he’s come out of every other fight, he might be the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world.”

Pereira is currently ranked No. 3 on the official pound-for-pound chart (see it here).

Above “Poatan” are reigning heavyweight titleholder Jon Jones (No. 2) and current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev (No. 1). “Bones” is expected to defend his title against Tom Aspinall later this year while Makhachev could be in line for this championship super fight.

Until then, all we can do is pray.

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