Top Rank exec believes ‘hypocritical’ Dana White is inspiring UFC fighter mutiny: ‘The genie’s out of the bottle’

Although Top Rank has not promoted a single show in the United States since losing its ESPN deal this past July, the company and its founder, Bob Arum, have remained central targets of Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing press conference rants.

White has launched a war of words against boxing’s old guard, claiming that he’s “beating up babies” and that the establishment has already allowed him to take over the sport.

Central to Zuffa Boxing’s longterm plan is leveraging its political influence to pass the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, a vital piece of legislation that would allow Zuffa to run like another TKO property, the UFC. White’s push to change the existing Ali Act has ruffled the feathers of many in boxing — and Top Rank President Todd duBoef is no exception.

“I mean, so ridiculous,” duBoef told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” of TKO’s plans. “Why? I think it’s so hypocritical, and it’s really the fundamentals. Let’s talk about — UFC was created by Nevada Boxing Commission regulators, right? Lorenzo Fertitta bought it. He was a Nevada [regulator]. … Didn’t create it, [but made it into] the current version [of the UFC], right? … They all brought in Mark Ratner. They brought in Kirk Kendrick, right? They brought in Michael Mersch. They brought in a lot [of people].

“They saw the problems that existed in how boxing got regulated and [they] created a business model [with the UFC] so they didn’t have to succumb to that. All they did was tell us how bad we were and how bad boxing was, and Bob Arum is this and Bob Arum is that and f*** boxing and it’s an old man sport. Now they want to come in … and they say, ‘We want to play. We want to play, but we want to change the rules for us and nobody else.’ I saw Dana call somebody a p****. That seems like a f***ing p**** [move].

“What do you mean you want to change the rules for you that only apply to you and nobody else?” duBoef continued. “I don’t get that. I really don’t understand it. And I think that if you want to get into the sport, great. Come into the sport, right? Come into what it’s [like now], it’s current [state], what we’re all operating in. It would be like I want to trade stocks in the SEC, but I want to do it a separate way — I want to be able to front-run somebody, right? Or get inside information. It doesn’t make sense.

“But they’re very powerful. They’re very well-connected. They have a great product in UFC and in WWE. They’re great at it. I think I understand their strategy — they want to build out a boxing vertical. I can’t figure out which path they’re choosing on this one. I heard it was a league, I heard it wasn’t a league. I don’t know. I think they’re in the air on where they’re going.”

Should the Ali Revival Act pass, which it is likely to do so, it would pave the way for White to create a Unified Boxing Organization, where fighters would fight for a Zuffa belt and enter the UBO’s rankings. The move would allow White to own both the events and the championships, giving him a level of control no promoter in traditional boxing has.

The bill would also remove the Ali Act’s transparency requirements, which give upper-echelon fighters on a card the right to know the financial elements of the event they are fighting in and what percentage they ultimately receive. No such law exists in MMA, and thus UFC fighters are left with as little as 20% of event revenue, compared to up to 80% the talent in boxing can receive.

As duBoef pointed out, Zuffa Boxing’s plans, at the moment, appear to be all over the place. Despite entering boxing by saying it would not recognize boxing’s sanctioning bodies, White threatened to sue the IBF at a recent press conference after it withdrew sanction of Jai Opetaia’s title defense against Brandon Glanton at Zuffa Boxing 4.

“Every time I walk into a kid’s room and he’s 17 years old or 18 years old and I meet the family, they all want to be a world champion,” duBoef said. “They want to be a world champion. They want to wear the [WBC] green belt. They want the WBA belt. They want the IBF belt. That’s what I see.”

Rival promoter Eddie Hearn has been a vocal supporter of boxing’s traditional four-title system in recent months, claiming it is every fighter’s dream to win those belts and that Zuffa belts would not carry the same prestige. duBoef sides with Hearn on this topic — and also, as it amounts to UFC fighter pay.

“I think they’ve got to be careful,” duBoef warned TKO. “I haven’t seen this much just vocal rage by the MMA athletes [that I’m seeing] today against UFC than in [the past] 30 years. I’ve never seen this. The genie’s out of the bottle. They played a game with this Conor Benn thing — I don’t know what the purpose of that game was — and then they kind of tried to wipe their hands of it, but that domino fell.

“And I’ve never seen anything like this, where these athletes who were so scared to say anything — this is like the old Iron Curtain, where people don’t say anything. Now these kids are just all voicing their opinions. And that’s the domino I’m not sure they thought was going to fall.”

After Zuffa announced the shocking signing of Benn to a one-fight deal for the reported sum of $15 million, numerous UFC fighters including Michael “Venom” Page, Aljamain Sterling, Israel Adesanya and Sean O’Malley, have made comments questioning the value of Benn’s deal to face Regis Prograis and why they aren’t seeing a pay increase in their fights, despite the UFC earning substantially more in its new $7.7 billion television deal.

The signing of Benn may have been a major boost for Zuffa Boxing, but at the same time, it has resulted in one of the most unified waves of criticism against UFC fighter pay in years. The saga not only served as ammunition for Ronda Rousey in a recent MVP MMA press conference, but also allowed Hearn to secure the signing of UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall to Matchroom Talent Agency as a direct result of fight pay concerns.

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TKO has maintained that it is not footing the bill for Benn or Zuffa Boxing, and that Saudi Arabia’s SELA is responsible for the extravagant purses being offered to athletes such as Benn. SELA was also responsible for paying Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Terence Crawford for 2025’s Netflix blockbuster, an event which White helped promote.

White has criticized boxing promoters in the past for lacking vision, but duBoef cannot understand why TKO and White have not put any of their own money up for their boxing venture, or implemented the sustainable economic policies they have in the UFC.

“That’s Dana. He’s a bully,” duBoef said of White. “I get it. I don’t understand, for my purposes — Dana, words meet your actions, actions meet your words, right? And I listen to all of his stuff where he used to destroy boxing promoters — that we take no risk, we just show up, leverage everything for one night, we take no risk. And then I see him tattooing on an island between Crawford and Canelo in a photo op where he’s not doing anything. He’s just standing there like one of us promoters in between two guys like a stand-up cutout.

“It just feels off to me. It doesn’t feel like their business model. And it feels like what he was criticizing us about years ago, he was doing here. And then they say, ‘Oh, we’re not paying Conor Benn.’ Who signed him then? I don’t understand. I wish there was consistency between what he criticizes us for and what the actions are going to be.”

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