Dana White emphatically denied any interest in cross-over fights between UFC and Zuffa Boxing.

Zuffa Boxing is still in its infancy relative to the UFC, having launched with the Terence Crawford versus Canelo Alvarez fight last year. But it has dominated headlines with the $15 million signing of Conor Benn, sparking uproar between critics and UFC fighters alike. 

One way many thought that issue could be remediated is by giving certain fighters the opportunity to box if they so choose, with the likes of Alex Pereira and Max Holloway making it clear they would if they could.

White was asked on Saturday following Fight Night in London whether that could be the case, and he was certain that it would not.

“No way in Hell,” he said. “The cross-over fights suck.”

He was asked if that extended to a fight on the scale of Pereira against Oleksandr Usyk, to which he simply repeated “No.”

“That’s not what we do,” he continued. “I want to see the best fighters in the world fight the best fighters in the world. I mean, I’d like to see Jai Opetaia fight Usyk… There’s other networks and other people that do that s***, it’s not what I do.”

Of course that’s not entirely true, since White backed Conor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017. But he alluded to that anyway: “I did it once… It was financially unbelievable, but how many times can you keep fooling people with that?”

White continued to say that the only attraction fights that pull big numbers are the ones involving Mike Tyson, and echoed that “It’s just not what I do.”

There has been a swathe of MMA fighters over the past half-decade to cross-over to boxing, mostly for the larger pay-day, including undefeated UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou and innovator of the BMF moniker Nate Diaz. Though they had to leave UFC before stepping into the squared circle, and have yet to find any real success.

If you’ve been a fan of WWE for a while, you’ll know that the company has a little tendency to stretch the truth and rewrite history. After all, history is only ever written by the winners, and when the person with the pen in their hand is someone like Vince McMahon who literally bought his biggest competition at the start of the 21st century and ruled over wrestling like some deranged overlord, the past is always going to look favorable on WWE.

WrestleMania 30 is a prime example of this, because WWE has made it very clear that Daniel Bryan walking out of New Orleans with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was the culmination of a two year story… except it wasn’t, not even close.

The tale WWE likes to tell is that Bryan lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Sheamus in 18 seconds at WrestleMania 28, and started his redemption arc almost overnight. The “NO!” chants that were lobbied at him were a response to the “YES!” chants that Bryan had been doing, but they organically became positive chants over time that resulted in a movement which took Bryan to the pinnacle of professional wrestling. What actually happened is very different. Bryan was always seen as a solid hand, but never a main event star. He was seen as a “internet darling,” a term WWE liked to use for anyone the fans cheered for because they worked in Ring of Honor or in Japan, rather than the fans cheering for them because they liked the wrestler’s work.

Because of this, Bryan was always positioned in and around the title picture, but was never actually going to be given the ball. It got to the point where Bryan’s “YES!” chants were what WWE thought was over and not the man himself, so the company tried to give the chants to someone they wanted in the main event scene, The Big Show. The whole “B+ Player” mantra was the one thing that was actually true about the whole thing, and let’s be honest with ourselves; had it not been for CM Punk walking out of the company, Bryan would have never won the big one at WrestleMania 30. If you need evidence for this, Punk still has the original rundown of what WrestleMania was going to look like, and he was going to face Triple H while the main event was going to be Orton vs. Batista. Where was Bryan? Wrestling Sheamus of course!

WWE has toned down on the rewriting of history somewhat in recent years as they realized that people could probably just do their own research and find out what the past actually looked like. With that said, it’s still frustrating that this is one of those situations where they bend over backwards to tell you that the company “listens to its fans,” when in reality, WWE would have bent over backwards to keep Bryan as far away from the WrestleMania 30 main event as humanly possible.

WWE Women’s Champion Jade Cargill has claimed she knows technical wrestling, which she learned from AEW’s Bryan Danielson, but insists fans don’t want to see her wrestle that way.

Cargill has had a quick rise to the top in pro wrestling, having only wrestled her first match in 2021. The former AEW star recently discussed on “Complex” that Danielson was one of her mentors in the business and that he taught her technical wrestling, which she used in AEW matches. However, the fans’ reaction led her to drop that style of wrestling and transition to her current style.

“Daniel Bryan has taught me so much technical wrestling — and I tried it. I tried to do some technical wrestling. And I think it’s funny because when I tried technical wrestling and I have tried it, if you go back at my old stuff, if you can pull it up at my previous company, I tried it. [But] I had no reaction out of fans and I learned so much,” she said. “I was training with him [Bryan] every week. You know what fans want to see? Me picking somebody else up, me throwing somebody around, me talking my smack. They don’t want to see me on the ground grappling. I know how to grapple. I know how to do [it]. They [fans] don’t want to see that. They get up out their seats, they boo, they do what they need to do when I’m picking somebody up and I’m pounding them to the ground. That’s what they like.”

The WWE star added that she follows the advice that WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Billy Gunn have given her, particularly how they have used their size to their advantage, which she feels is the case with her, too. Cargill is eager to do more in the ring, with her recently revealing that she wants to defend her title more often and have physical matches.

Comparing herself to the likes of NBA megastars and legends LeBron James and Michael Jordan, Jade Cargill doesn’t need anyone in the industry to tell her that she’s that “b***h.” She knows it, and owns it. Embodying all the characteristics that make for a globally recognized champion, followed by a notorious heel, the WWE Women’s Champion loves that she’s hated by you.

“At the end of the day, I don’t care about anybody. Why come back and say, ‘well, I don’t care if you this, this, and this…’ All I want to do is wrestle,” the champion said in an interview with “Complex Graps.”

Seeing the tensions boiling over between her and her upcoming opponent at WrestleMania 42 in “The Eradicator” Rhea Ripley, Cargill knows that the spotlight will always follow her, so long as she makes a scene, good or bad: “Y’all have seen me grow on TV organically, and it’s, like, no appreciation for that…I still have so much room to grow…I know that good or bad…my name starts a trend…People always talk about me. Always. I’m always in the topic of conversation.”

Despite having the championship gold wrapped around her waist now, she doesn’t need it, the ring, or the fans, as indicated in her recent in-ring promo on “WWE SmackDown.” Nonetheless, smug and poised to retain her championship, Cargill is focused on leaving “Mami” in the dust after WrestleMania  in April, and heading towards another arch-rival in the making, Charlotte Flair. Her goal would be to face the “Queen” on one of the two nights at SummerSlam in August.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Complex Graps” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.