Dana White recently criticized Misfits Boxing harshly for their claim of 1.3 million pay-per-view buys.
Misfits Boxing recently hosted an event on October 14 at Manchester, England’s AO Arena. The event featured notable influencers, headlined by Tommy Fury’s victory over KSI and Logan Paul’s dominant performance against Dillon Danis.
The majority of the bouts fell short of the dramatic social media anticipation. Having said that, Misfits Boxing said after the event that it had sold 1.3 million pay-per-views. This is an incredible amount for a combat sports event.
Despite the declaration, skepticism emerged regarding the credibility of this colossal sales figure. Many questioned the authenticity of influencer boxing generating such massive PPV numbers.
UFC president Dana White vehemently rebuked Misfits Boxing’s claim, expressing disbelief at the proclaimed numbers. In a statement during an interview on the Full Send Podcast, White dismissed the possibility of such remarkable figures.
He said: “Let me tell you this. Let me tell you how hard it is to sell 1.3 million pay-per-view buys. And if you did sell 1.3, if you sold 700,000 pay-per-view buys, they’d be putting on fights f*cking ten times a year.”
“When you hear those numbers fly around in the pay-per-view world, they’re lying motherf*ckers. Don’t ever believe that sh*t. Do you know how much f*cking money that is if they went in and cut a deal and did 1.3 million pay-per-view buys?”
White continued: “If you come out and say you did 1.3 million pay-per-view buys on your event, you’re lying through your f*cking teeth. Lying through your teeth. That amount of money you would make, they’d be doing pay-per-views all the f*cking time. Let me tell you what. Every pay-per-view distributor out there would want them and Showtime wouldn’t have went out of business.”
But White’s criticism extended beyond the numbers. He highlighted concerns about the overall quality and production of influencer boxing matches.
White stated: “Much cheaper and a much better experience [to watch the highlights on social media]. The production sucks, the f*cking fights end up sucking. It’s sh*tty boxing is what it is. I’m not trying to sh*t on them. I don’t care what they guys do, knock yourself out. These are just facts…None of those f*cking guys are doing a million buys.”
Influencer boxing has gained a huge fan base in recent years from those who want to see their favourite social media influencers compete in combat sports. Misfits Boxing conducted eight events in 2023, foreseeing a groundbreaking year in 2024 due to their expanding fan following and minimal competition.