TKO-Saudi Boxing Venture Having Trouble Attracting Talent to Fill Its Roster
- Matthew Brown
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
05/16/2025
When TKO Holdings unveiled its long-rumored Saudi-backed boxing league in March, the announcement was met not with shockwaves, but with tepid shrugs. No name, no fighters, and no clear path forward—just another speculative leap by Dana White into a sport that’s eluded his grasp for decades. And now, with the calendar creeping toward 2026 and the league’s promised launch, it’s becoming evident: the TKO Boxing venture is not off to a rousing start.
The league’s existence was confirmed during a March earnings call by TKO Holdings President & COO Mark Shapiro, who revealed that UFC czar Dana White would be the driving force behind the new enterprise. White is set to receive a $10 million payout to produce, promote, and operate what’s tentatively referred to as “TKO Boxing.” Shapiro emphasized the ambition: twelve cards annually for five years, along with one to four “super fights” per year. A name unveiling, Shapiro claimed, was “coming fairly soon.”
Two months later, there’s no name, no signed talent, and no wave of excitement—just skepticism and silence.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya has not been shy in voicing his doubts.
“You can’t run a boxing organization when you have zero fighters,” De La Hoya said bluntly. “Right now, TKO and Dana have zero fighters. They’re trying to build something years from now when fighters’ contracts come up with current promoters, and then they will try to start attempting to sign them.”
In an already saturated boxing ecosystem where Top Rank, PBC, Queensberry Matchroom, and Golden Boy rule the landscape, it’s hard to see what incentive a fighter has to jump ship—especially when the compensation doesn’t measure up.
A report by Lance Pugmire of Boxing Scene provided some insight with what was said to be the proposed pay scale for fighters under the TKO banner. According to the report:
• $20,000 for a 10-round bout by an unranked fighter
• $50,000 for fighters ranked No. 5 to No. 10
• $125,000 for those ranked No. 3 to No. 4
• $375,000 for a “company” title challenge
• $750,000 for a title defense
The reaction from De La Hoya was immediate.
“If these are real, holy shit,” De La Hoya exclaimed. “Dana’s going to have several problems. No fighters are going to fight for these pennies!”
Indeed, the disparity between the reported purses and current market expectations is glaring. Elite boxers routinely command seven-figure purses. Even mid-tier fighters with television exposure can eclipse the pay tiers listed above. The idea of locking oneself into a three-year exclusive deal for sub-market pay—and a league that doesn’t yet exist—is a non-starter for many.
Brunch Boxing spoke with several fighters who were approached by TKO’s representatives. Their hesitancy was unanimous.
“They’ve reached out to me and sent me their terms,” said one top-10 contender. “One of the guys is like, ‘Oh man, you know, you’re already one of the top fighters.’ I don’t know. Because boxing’s not only hard, but it’s shit. It’s a dirty motherfucking business. So you want to go fuck with TKO, and you want to burn the bridge with Golden Boy, Matchroom and all these other promoters, and just think shit’s gonna be sweet when that shit don’t go the way it’s supposed to go?”
That fighter also added: “I don’t want to be no fucking guinea pig. I ain’t trying to burn the bridge. I do want to become a solidified world champion—WBA, WBO, WBC. All of this creating new belts, and good luck to them, but I don’t really think it’s for me. At least not right now.”
Fighters also criticized the pay structure’s reliance on arbitrary in-house rankings to determine pay.
“Once they’re up and running for a few years, I think their numbers will kind of change,” the fighter said. “And it’s not even so much about the numbers. It’s also kind of like the concept. You gotta be ranked top five to make this much or they’ll say you fight this amount of times.”
Another major issue: the optics of burning bridges in an industry where promoter relationships are everything. Fighters are wary of severing ties with their current promoters for a venture run by a figure whose experience in boxing is more punchline than legacy.
Dana White’s most recent foray into boxing—Zuffa Boxing—never made it past a viral and unintentionally comical Mike Coppinger tweet showing an empty room and a few chairs described as Zuffa’s “war room.” The endeavor never staged a single fight.
Now, with TKO Boxing, fighters are being asked to trust a man with an openly adversarial stance toward the sport’s establishment. When asked if he would be working with the likes of Bob Arum or Oscar De La Hoya, White responded: “Let’s hope not. I would never say never, but that is not what I plan to do.”
That scorched-earth approach might work in MMA, where the UFC maintains a monopolistic grip on the sport. But in boxing, isolation is fatal.
One of White’s few friends in boxing is promoter Tom Loeffler of 360 Promotions, whose cards air on UFC Fight Pass. Fighters like Omar Trinidad and Callum Walsh have benefited from Loeffler’s platform, and those relationships could prove crucial. But 360 Promotions does not come close to supplying the volume or star power needed to populate a league that intends to run 12+ shows a year.
TKO would need to sign dozens, if not hundreds of fighters across multiple weight classes. So far, that task has yielded little fruit.
As if talent recruitment weren’t complicated enough, the TKO venture is reportedly seeking an amendment to the Muhammad Ali Act, which prevents promoters from also serving as sanctioning bodies. The goal? To create and control their own championship belts.
But this strategy has only deepened skepticism.
Fighters have expressed more interest in traditional world titles—the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO—and don’t see value in hoisting a belt made by an unproven entity.
“You think I’m going to train my whole life to win a belt that don’t even mean nothing?” said one veteran fighter. “Let them show something first.”
The dream of a Saudi-backed, Dana White-led boxing league that could reshape the sport sounds appealing on paper. But paper doesn’t bleed, sweat, or climb into a ring. Fighters do. And right now, they aren’t buying what TKO is selling.
Without marquee talent, proven promoters, competitive pay, or the trust of the boxing community, the TKO Boxing venture risks becoming just another failed attempt to disrupt a sport that refuses to be tamed. With less than a year until its planned debut, the question isn’t whether the league can thrive—it’s whether it can even get off the ground in a proper fashion.
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