“Showtime and HBO boxing is dead. But the @ufc is here and thriving. If you fighters in denial ever build up the courage to step in to the cage and fight. The time is now!” Conor McGregor had already called it in 2023. Even before that, in 2017, McGregor claimed that understanding just one discipline of martial arts wasn’t enough. And now, his close friend, Dillon Danis, has backed ‘Mystic Mac’s claims after Canelo Alvarez vs. William Scull.
Alvarez won the bout against Scull on May 3, 2025, making it his 6th consecutive win via a unanimous decision. However, he wasn’t able to keep the audience hooked through the 12-round affair. As he was walking out of the ANB Arena in Riyadh, Alvarez had a brief interaction with the media. That’s when the undisputed middleweight champion expressed his disappointment with fighting Scull.
He said, “That’s why I hate fighters like that. To put on a good show, you need two fighters trying to win, to do something. But I’m happy. I’m happy with the win, and that’s all that matters.” Alvarez did talk with his opponent about the lackluster fight. According to Scull, he did everything to ensure that he put on a good fight. But the middleweight boxing champion wasn’t convinced. He continued, “That’s a mediocre mind, because they come just to survive, to go to the 12th round. That’s a mediocre mind. You need to put a good fight, a great show.” Nevertheless, he felt assured about his upcoming bout against Terence Crawford.
However, Danis seemed to believe that this was the perfect chance for him to make his stance about MMA stronger than ever. Taking to X, ‘El Jefe’ wrote, “Canelo just solidified my point. MMA is way more exciting than boxing. The supposed king of boxing went 12 rounds with a mannequin from JCPenney and still put everyone to sleep. At this point, boxing ain’t a sport anymore, it’s a sleep aid with ring lights.”
Canelo just solidified my point. MMA is way more exciting than boxing. The supposed king of boxing went 12 rounds with a mannequin from JCPenney and still put everyone to sleep. At this point, boxing ain’t a sport anymore, it’s a sleep aid with ring lights.
— Dillon Danis (@dillondanis) May 4, 2025
Danis’ new flavors about MMA vs. Boxing certainly leave a sour aftertaste. But ‘El Jefe’ wasn’t the one who put the sourness in the never-ending debate. It was actually Ariel Helwani and Eddie Hearn who reignited the flames when they expressed that “MMA is in a recession.” To make things worse, Hearn claimed that he couldn’t even name 6 stars from the UFC. Thankfully, Dana White had a defender who proved Hearn and Helwani wrong.
Chael Sonnen backs the growth of UFC and dismisses recession claims
Chael Sonnen swooped in to defend UFC’s honor as soon as he read Helwani’s tweet claiming that MMA was in a recession. Taking to his YouTube channel, he made the audience take a look at the live gate and PPV numbers. He quoted, “Let’s just look at that. Because for Ariel to say that it’s in a recession, the exact same Saturday cards, the ESPN cards, the non-pay-per-views, that used to be done with no gates at the Apex, are now drawing, each Saturday, between $1.8M and $2.3M.” The simple fact that the UFC was selling out venues for non-PPV events as if they were PPVs made quite a boom.
He also shed some light on UFC Fight Night: Cory Sandhagen vs. Deiveson Figueiredo. The event ensured the arena was sold out with just 3 days to go for the fight. About 14K people bought the tickets to watch the fights live in the capital of Iowa, despite it being an unusual location for MMA events. ‘The Bad Guy’ continued, “MMA is in a recession. That is a ridiculously inaccurate statement. And inaccurate is a nice way of saying it. It sounds dishonest, but that’s a much stronger word. So, I’ll just say inaccurate.”
But there’s more to the story. There was a time in 2021 when White revealed how UFC fared better than boxing. During a DWCS press conference in 2021, the UFC head honcho revealed his feelings about boxing as a sport and a business. White claimed, “We run a real business, unlike boxing. Boxing doesn’t run a real business. What these guys do is every event is a going out of business sale. They’re trying to get as much money as they can in the door. The two guys at the top of the card make all the money.” On top of that, the boxing world hosted only about 52-53 bouts a year. However, UFC was a lot different than boxing.
The UFC CEO continued, “One of the other things we do and why we run a real business is we reinvest in the sport. Not just the business of the UFC, but we reinvest in the sport, and we’ve built a global business over the last 20 years. We have infrastructure. We have 450 employees.” He was indeed reflecting on the UFC Performance Institutes that let the fighters train in the facility. There’s the UFC HQ, too. On top of that, there’s the new Apex building, famous for hosting UFC Fight Nights. To make things more honorable, the UFC used to pay the USADA to test their fighters. Now that things didn’t work out well with the drug testing organization, UFC initiated a new anti-doping program and shook hands with DFSI (Drug Free Sport International) in December 2023.
Now, with his desire to enter the boxing realm via TKO Boxing on the verge of coming alive, White faces a challenge with the UFC. Well, Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford is set to go down on 12 September 2025. And Sheikh Turki Alalshikh, through a tweet, announced that White will promote this as his first TKO Boxing event. And soon after that, the UFC will host UFC Noche (UFC 320) in Mexico City on September 13. These 2 nights are expected to cost about $300M, and Dana White will have to get in the trenches to make sure everything meets his standards. Rest assured, we’re going to be greatly entertained.
What do you think of the never-ending MMA vs. Boxing debate? If you had to choose between the two sports, which would you choose and why? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.
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