If you’re a combat sports purist and don’t wish to see any more UFC stars fight boxing’s best, well, it sounds like we could see more crossover bouts in the future. That said, Dana White says he’s only interested in going that route again if there’s widespread demand for the fight.
White comments on crossover bouts
Talk and debate about having boxers face MMA fighters is nothing new. After all, we’ve seen boxing stars like James Toney come to the UFC and lose to Randy Couture, and Conor McGregor boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, and was stopped by the undefeated pugilist. Since the latter fight was ridiculously massive, and made all the parties involved buckets of cash, many MMA fighters have called for boxing matches with boxers since.
Case in point, in recent months we’ve seen Jorge Masvidal call for a fight with Canelo Alvarez, Stipe Miocic relay he wants to box Tyson Fury and Khabib Nurmagomedov say he’d throw hands with Mayweather Jr. too.
Well, recently White spoke with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. While talking about whether he’ll book more crossover bouts, the UFC President said this (quotes via MMA Junkie):
“We’ll see,” White said. “We can do some crossover stuff here, or we can do something in boxing. Our last experience, Floyd was actually pretty easy to deal with. Haymon is incredible to deal with. Floyd and I got a handshake deal at the basketball game, and we’ll get the rest figured out.”
“I don’t love them (crossover fights). … (But) when the demand is there. I felt the demand for McGregor vs. Mayweather, felt it, I knew it would be big, so we started talking. Then once I started to really feel it, that’s when I started to take it serious, and I made an offer. … It will be interesting to see if we start to see that kind of demand again with any kind of crossover fight.”
Good news? Bad news?
If you like watching fights, whereby, you’re fairly certain to have a somewhat competitive bout, then you shouldn’t be interested in seeing more crossover fights moving forward. Could Masvidal possibly tag Canelo and beat the boxing superstar? It’s not impossible. Sure. But the chances of it being a thrilling, competitive fight are small. Just like if Canelo came to the UFC and faced Masvidal in a MMA bout. “Gamebred” would almost certainly dominate and cruise to a win.
So, based off what White’s, it sounds like he’ll only move forward with more crossover bouts unless it can be a massive, massive fight. Right now, there doesn’t really seem to be one of those on the horizon. That said, with Mayweather Jr. and White planning to do business, anything can happen. Right now, you would think the best way to promote a massive, crossover bout involving Mayweather Jr. would be to have him compete under MMA rules. But, it would be really surprising if the undefeated boxer signed up for that.
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