There is no denying that Dana White is a visionary who built UFC into a multimillion-dollar business. Apart from being the UFC president, he also owns the Slap Fight promotion and expressed intentions of buying a boxing promotion. Meanwhile, there was news on the internet that Endeavor, home to UFC and WWE, has bought the famous boxing promotion Top Rank. Now, Dana White has debunked the story of buying the Bob Arum promotion.
For those who don’t know, it was reported that the boxing powerhouse Top Rank was in the final stages of being sold to Endeavor. It was said that after 58 years in boxing, 92-year-old Bob Arum is retiring. Now there’s talk of White entering the boxing business with the Top Rank purchase.
Indeed, if it were true, it would have been the biggest news for boxing and UFC both. Not to forget, White and Arum have a history of rivalry. However, the UFC President on his Instagram story said that the news isn’t true and shared a photo saying;
“Absolutely positively not true. We are not buying Top Rank.”
Earlier this year, the combat sports community witnessed the biggest news of all time: the beginning of a new era in sports and entertainment, the merger between WWE and UFC’s parent company Endeavor, creating a $21 billion corporation named TKO.
If the news of Top Rank being sold to Endeavor was true, the company’s worth would have skyrocketed. It would be really interesting to see how White would have taken this business, as he was unimpressed by the way Arum was handling it earlier.
Dana White vs. Top Rank’s Bob Arum: The Beef
When it comes to paying fighters, the UFC has faced allegations of underpayment, and White has addressed this issue multiple times. Because of the payout in 2020, after Arum publicly mentioned that he could have bought a house in Beverly Hills with the money lost because of Crawford. This comment angered White to the core, and during the DWCS presser, he took shots at Arum. He stated;
“You imagine if I said that are you fu**ing kidding me you guys would have murdered me if I said that. I’d never hear the end of that. That’s what you do that’s not his fu**ing problem that’s yours. His problem isn’t to figure out how you make money. You fu**ing signed a deal with that kid, your job is to promote him. All these kids that I signed you know and if you look right now at the kids we signed on our roster is very inflated right now.”
According to Dana White, Arum’s job is to pay fighters and he cannot back out from that. Meanwhile, this wasn’t the only time he took a shot at Arum. White has also taken shots at Oscar De La Hoya, not limiting his criticism to just Top Rank’s promoter. Given White’s frustration with boxing promoters, it would have been interesting if the news of buying Top Rank had been true and how he would have run it.
