What next for Zuffa Boxing after UK debut? Dana White celebrates Bournemouth show and teases ‘big announcements’ ahead | Boxing News

Even before Chris Billam-Smith’s brutal battle with Ryan Rozicki and gruelling hometown victory, Dana White was already left ‘pumped’ by the early success of Zuffa Boxing’s first show on UK soil.

Zuffa Boxing 07 was the promotion’s first outside of the United States, with those watching from a packed-out Bournemouth International Centre or live on Sky Sports treated to explosive knockouts, dramatic finishes and two ‘fight of the year’ contenders from the co-main events.

Alex MacMillan, Sam Hickey and Leon Hughes enhanced their credentials by all maintaining 100 per cent records as professionals with knockout victories, before Stephen McKenna marked his return from a 539-day absence by taking just 64 seconds to blast out his opponent.

Cheavon Clarke’s remarkable come-from-behind victory against Jack Massey – where he recovered from being knocked down twice in the fourth round to stop his compatriot in the seventh – looked hard to better, only for Billam-Smith to beat Rozicki in a fight White likened to a ‘Rocky movie’.

“I’m never out to make a statement, I just want to put on great fights,” White said in his post-show press conference. “When we go to a place and people buy tickets and come in live, and when people watch on TV, I want them to turn their TV off or walk out of the arena glad they came to the fights.

“I want to build trust back up with the fans that when we roll into town, or we’re on TV on Saturday night or Sunday or whenever we’re on, we’re going to deliver.

“Tonight was great. The UK runs boxing right now. For us to come into the UK and put on an event like tonight, we’re pretty pumped.”

Both Billam-Smith and Rozicki were sent to hospital as a precaution after their classic encounter, where both traded heavy shots and momentum swung both ways, with the bruising contest only ending when the Canadian’s corner pulled him out at the end of the seventh round.

“We know how talented CBS [Billam-Smith] is and we knew going in how tough and mean Rozicki was, so it had all the makings of a great fight,” White explained.

“In that sixth round in particular, Billam-Smith seemed to land an awful lot of blows to Rozicki. Was I surprised to see him [Rozicki] come back out? No, but I was happy to see his corner call.

“What a hell of a fight. An incredible fight from top to bottom, but the main event was like a Rocky movie.”

‘A lot of big announcements coming’ – what next for Zuffa Boxing?

White – the long-serving figurehead of the UFC – and WWE president and TKO board member Nick Khan were both ringside for Zuffa Boxing’s UK debut, with new signing Conor Benn and numerous other British boxers also in attendance.

Zuffa Boxing already has three confirmed events over the coming months, with Las Vegas (June 28) followed by promotions in New York (July 26) and Dublin (August 8), with White confirming that further shows and signings are still to be announced.

“Obviously I’m honoured that a lot of these guys showed up to watch our event,” White said. “My goal is over the next couple of years to have everybody. Everybody.”

He later added: “I’ve been saying to everybody, January 1st – judge us then on the work that we did this year. We’ve got a lot of big announcements coming up over the next month, so you can expect lots of big things coming from us.

“That’s what I want to do with the sport, not just a couple of shows. Great matchmaking, put on fight cards like tonight [Bournemouth] – that’s the goal.

“What starts to happen is as we rip the sport apart and start to build from the ground up with nights like tonight, it starts to create all these different storylines and starts to line up different fights. The fans and the media start to talk about what they want to see next.

“We have a Sky deal, which is a very big deal to us, so we’ll be in the UK a lot. We’re five months into this thing and we’re already adding more shows on our Paramount deal and I hope the same thing happens with Sky.”

White played down any suggestion of a future head-to-head show with rival promoters, like those created between Queensberry and Matchroom fighters, although he remains open to exploring new ways to continue their growth in boxing and compete with sports’ biggest leagues.

“Without sounding too arrogant, people always ask me about ‘oh, you’re competing with this guy’. At the level that we’re at, we’re competing with the NFL, we’re competing with the NBA, we’re competing with Major League Baseball and with the NHL,” White insisted.

“In the United States, the powerhouse over there is the NFL. When you go outside the United States, you start competing with soccer. When I think about my competition, those are the people that I’m looking at as competition these days.”

Zuffa Boxing delivered a card that offered everything they set out to achieve, with plenty more to come.

Zuffa Boxing shows are scheduled in Las Vegas on June 28 and New York on July 26 ahead of their first Irish show in Dublin on August 8, with all three live and exclusive in the UK and Ireland on Sky Sports. Get Sky Sports or stream boxing with no contract.