LAS VEGAS -- After all five winners on Tuesday's edition of Dana White's Contender Series at Apex received UFC contracts, it brought the Season 8 total to 29 contracts awarded in 34 fights. That's 85.3 percent, which means that if you win, you're almost certainly in.
One could say giving contracts to all of the winners takes the drama out of the show, and you'd be right. They aren't making hard decisions. White said that he wasn't impressed enough by light heavyweight Kevin Christian to want to sign him, but after Christian submitted Francesco Mazzeo in the second round with a triangle armbar, matchmaker Mick Maynard convinced him to give Christian a shot.
White had special praise for heavyweight Danylo Voievodkin, who dropped Bailey Schoenfelder with a hook and finished him at 1:13 of the first with a rear naked choke, and featherweight Kevin Vallejos, who used a 20-punch combination to stop Cam Teague in the first.
White said both of them show star potential.
Soon, though, the conversation at the post-fight news conference drifted from MMA to boxing, the sport that White simultaneously loves and loves to hate.
And White reiterated Tuesday what he'd said last week in Dublin, Ireland; He's entering the boxing business.
"I have a plan; we're going to implement that plan and we'll see how it works," White said. "People have been talking about the demise of boxing for 30 years and we're still here talking about boxing right now. I have always had an idea of how I thought it should be done. I don't know if that's possible, but we're going to find out. I'm going to come in guns ablazing."
He said he'd announce his plans in boxing at the beginning of 2025. There is construction going on at UFC Apex and White said he's building offices for his boxing staff on the site.
He wouldn't divulge much -- he loves keeping secrets and making big, grandiose announcements -- but did say Tuesday "we'll definitely be HBO."
That could hint at his plans. UFC Fight Pass shows some lower-level boxing shows, but isn't heavily invested. But if White makes a spirited entrance in boxing, he could use Fight Pass as a streaming platform for the fights he wants.
White said he has great relationships with promoters Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, Frank Warren of Queensberry and Tom Loeffler of 360 Promotions.
"I will probably be working with a lot of people," White said. "I am sure you can assume the people I will not be working with."
That seemed to be a reference to Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank. White took shots at both Top Rank founder Bob Arum and president Todd duBoef last week. "I don't think you have to be a fucking genius to figure that one out. I like Eddie Hearn a lot and would love to work with Eddie Hearn."
The one thing White can bring is the willingness to invest extraordinary amounts of money in the business. The UFC has built performance institutes in Las Vegas, Mexico City and Shanghai, China. He's looking to build one in Africa, as well, and has mentioned Puerto Rico in the past.
He's also created television products such as The Contender Series that not only has become a fertile ground for new talent, it's given his product a two- or three-hour infomercial. There isn't a lot of outside the box thinking among boxing promoters.
So it's hard to know if White plans to promote fighters himself, though he made a point to add, "I think it's been proven the UFC model works," or whether he'll just serve as a broadcast option for established boxing promoters.
He came close to entering boxing in 2017 before deciding that the time wasn't right then. He failed to elaborate on why, but said there are "a whole lot of reasons" why 2024 is much better for him to do it than 2017.
So we'll wait to see what plans White has to reimagine boxing in his image and if he's going to be able to, as his good friend Donald Trump likes to say, drain the swamp in boxing of those he perceives as problems for the sport.
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa
Daniel Frunza finished Vadym Kutsyi in the second round Tuesday.
Full Season 8, Week 7 DWCS results
• Danylo Voievodkin SUB1 Bailey Schoenfelder, rear naked choke, 1:13.
•Daniel Frunza TKO 2 Vadym Kutsyi, 3:30.
• Kevin Christian SUB2 Francesco Mazzeo, triangle armbar, 4:17.
• Kevin Vallejos TKO1 Cam Teague, 2:23.
• Alexia Thainara W3 Rose Conceicao, 30-27 on all cards.
• Contract winners in bold.