Dana White has been spending hours working on Shakur Stevenson’s next fight, according to a Boxing News 24 report published early Wednesday, Oct. 7. The public record ends there for now. The report’s headline is the only detail available, with no opponent, date, venue or broadcast partner attached, and no direct quote from White about how the talks are going.
The interesting part is who’s doing the work. White is the CEO of the UFC, and in 2025 he co-founded Zuffa Boxing, a professional boxing organization where he serves as promoter. The report doesn’t say whether a Stevenson fight would run under the Zuffa Boxing banner, and nobody should assume it will until there’s a signed contract or an official announcement. Still, the man running the biggest MMA promotion in the world (plus Power Slap, plus a seat on Meta’s board since 2025) is putting his own hours into one boxer’s next booking, and that tells you how seriously he’s treating the sport.
Boxing was White’s way into the fight business long before the octagon. He started boxing at 17, befriended former Golden Gloves champion Peter Welch and opened a boxing gym with him in Boston. He planned to turn pro himself until he saw a punch-drunk fighter and worried he’d end up the same way, so he coached boxercise classes instead. Years later, the Fertittas bought the UFC for $2 million in 2001 and made him president.
View post on X
A crowded week for White
The Stevenson report landed in the middle of a busy stretch. On Tuesday night’s Contender Series, White signed his own personal runner, Sal Everett, after Everett knocked his opponent out cold. “Everybody at the UFC loves you, you’re a great kid,” White told him, before joking that it was strange to welcome someone to a company he already worked for.
View post on X
A few days earlier at UFC 332, White reacted to the stoppage in King Green vs. Esteban Ribovics by saying, “Herb’s having a rough f*cking year.” He also floated Ilia Topuria vs. Paddy Pimblett as coaches for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, saying, “I love the idea of that, but a lot of things determine how things play out.”
Topuria and Pimblett remain an idea for now. The Stevenson fight is real enough that White is clocking hours on it, and the first name attached to that contract will be the actual news.
View post on X
