UFC president Dana White continues to shut down the idea of Kamaru Usman boxing Canelo Alvarez.
Usman, the reigning UFC welterweight champion, thinks a fight with Alvarez needs to happen, but with White not sold, he’s going to have some convincing to do.
Ever since co-promoting the boxing match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, White has been rather dismissive of crossover bouts. And as far as Usman vs. Alvarez goes, White seemingly has zero interest.
“I hate the Canelo fight,” White told ESPN. “I mean, I don’t even have to explain it to people. Everybody knows. I mean, come on. It’s silly.”
Mayweather’s win over McGregor reportedly generated over 4 million pay-per-views buys, making it one of the highest selling combat sports pay-per-views in history. If Usman was to box Alvarez, White doesn’t see the matchup doing numbers worthy of business.
“You can’t look at every one of these things like the Conor-Mayweather fight,” White said. “It’s not gonna be like the Conor-Mayweather fight. You go out and put on one of these type of fights, and you don’t sell the way you hope it would sell then believe me, I’m not interested in that. It’s not what I do.”
He continued, “We saw it. We know what happens if a boxer comes into the UFC, and we know what happens when UFC fighters go to boxing. Especially when you’re talking about Canelo, who’s one of the best in the world, one of the best of all time. Mayweather, one of the best of all time. It’s just silly.”
Dana White: Kamaru Usman boxing Canelo Alvarez is ‘silly,’ won’t sell like Mayweather-McGregor