Oscar De La Hoya is back with another Clapback video, and like many of his past videos, he’s blasting Dana White for how he runs UFC and how he’s trying to get into boxing.
De La Hoya has been trash talking White for years now, and rarely does a week go by where he doesn’t bring the UFC CEO up for some issue real or imagined. This week he focused on TKO’s upcoming Zuffa boxing league, which is set to debut on Paramount+ Friday, January 23rd.
“We have no idea who is fighting or where, but it’s taking
place on Friday night, so it’ll be the red headed stepchild to the UFC right off the bat,” De La Hoya claimed. “And president of TKO Mark Shapiro confirmed Zuffa boxing is completely funded by Saudi Arabia and TKO is taking zero financial risk. And their goal is to build a promotion with 200 fighters. Sound familiar?”
“I follow combat sports,” he added. “But outside of Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, or Khabib, I don’t know who the f–k anybody is in the UFC. Who are these f–king guys? Why don’t those big names fight anymore? Because they outgrew the UFC model and demand more money than the pay scale offers.”
Damn, that one actually lands.
“TKO will not allow anyone to become a star and grow to their full potential,” De La Hoya continued. “There will be no development of Zuffa fighters because they will get thrown into the fire right off the bat and face extremely tough opponents. So if you lose, you’re done. There’s no building a champion or a career.”
“And how in the f–k is Dana going to manage 200 boxers along with the 200 UFC fighters?” De La Hoya asked (unaware, apparently, that the UFC roster sits around 700 fighters). “At Golden Boy, we have about 35 fighters currently, and we expect every single one to become a world champion. Quality over quantity. We know the formula. I’ve done it for twenty five years.”
“Here’s the fine print. If you sign on the dotted line with TKO and Zuffa, you’re signing your rights away. You’ve seen it in the UFC. They want a monopoly. And not only will they be stuck in a dictatorship, you’ll be guided by people who have no f–king idea about boxing. You don’t know s–t about boxing.”
De La Hoya then turned his ire towards TKO exec and WWE president Nick Khan, who is one of the men spearheading Zuffa Boxing.
“Nick [Khan], do you even watch boxing? No,” he claimed. “Nick says they already have some amazing fighters signed to Zuffa. So I guess we wait to hear who those huge names are. Uh-huh. I’m willing to bet my ballsack they’re lying to us. Just like they’re lying about changing the Muhammad Ali act. Because where the f–k are you finding top level talent that nobody knows about?
“Are you creating AI fighters? You got Frankenstein signed to Zuffa? What the f–k are you talking about? I guess we’ll find out when your big January 23 card is announced.”
As always, it’s worth taking Oscar De La Hoya’s insults with a big pinch of salt. We’ve been following reports for months of Zuffa Boxing building its roster, and it’s expected that many fighters from Tom Loeffler’s 360 Promotions will be featured on early cards. That includes Dana White’s hand-picked prospect Callum Walsh, along with other 360 boxers like Serhii Bohanchuk, Cain Sandoval, and Umar Dzambekov.
De La Hoya is deluding himself if he thinks TKO has gotten to this point without laying down the pavement to actually pull off their big 2026 foray into boxing. They’re not pushing through a change to the Muhammad Ali act for funsies. As Oscar noted, they’re looking to set up a monopoly.
So are TKO bumbling idiots who don’t know anything about boxing or are they an existential threat to promoters like De La Hoya? Despite his bluster, we think Oscar knows which one they really are.
