UFC’s Dana White: Boxing is a mess, I’m not sure it can be fixed

Every now and then, someone will ask UFC boss Dana White some question about boxing, and White will predict the sport’s doom, and people will talk about it.

Well guess what day it is?!?!

Speaking with Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole, White was asked about the economics of boxing, which he says he looked into when he was trying to get a foot into the sport fairly recently, and whether or not boxing can survive going forward.

“I hate speaking negatively about the sport of boxing, other than it’s a mess,” White said. “We all know it’s a mess and it needs to be fixed, if it can be fixed. I told you guys I would have a press conference last October and announce all these things, but as I dove into this thing and started to look into the sport of boxing, the economics of boxing — that sport’s a mess. It’s a mess and it’s in big trouble. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”

Boxing, of course, doesn’t actually seem like it’s any more imminent danger than it’s been for the last 20 or so years that White has been singing this same tune, and high-level boxers continue to make far more money than the vast majority of high-level UFC fighters do. So who knows? But it sounds like Dana’s not gonna follow up on that big promise to take over boxing, at any rate. Maybe he can pick the bones when the sport dies, as it’s been about to do any day now forever.

White goes on to shoot down a suggestion of possibly, for example, putting Manny Pacquiao against a UFC fighter in a boxing main event, with UFC fights in the Octagon also on the same card, saying he just doesn’t like that sort of dual-sport event. We are in agreement on that.