Battleground state: Boxing-versus-MMA rivalry mirrors Nevada politics

LAS VEGAS – In a state deluged by political ads and campaign stops, Nevada’s clash of rival boxing and UFC cards this weekend joins the party, with some casting it as The Strip’s own tiny referendum on Democratic versus MAGA politics.

Nevada is among a small handful of states still considered to be in a dead-heat race for the U.S. presidency, with one national poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris clinging Thursday to a miniscule 45.6 percent to 45.5 percent lead over former President Donald Trump.

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, campaigned near The Strip in Henderson, Nevada, Thursday while Trump is scheduled to follow his Tuesday debate with Harris by campaigning Friday at Las Vegas’ Expo World Market Center.

What both sides can agree upon is that every vote counts.

So as he worked to promote the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s landmark debut – and perhaps only – event at The Sphere on Saturday night with UFC 306, UFC CEO Dana White informed BoxingScene’s Manouk Akopyan that while he is not expecting Trump to remain in town to attend The Sphere fight card, he is confident his “very good friend” will return to an Octagon soon.

“The next time you see Donald Trump at [a UFC] event, he will be the sitting president of the United States,” White told Akopyan.

At the UFC events, Trump is often hailed by the crowds, with many fans and fighters recognizing his O.G. stature in the mixed martial arts community.

White’s support of Trump has been a constant, dating to the early 2000s when Trump would host the still-fledging outfit at his Atlantic City venue while New York long stonewalled the organization and Trump’s late political rival, Sen. John McCain, labeled MMA “human cockfighting.”

White has appeared in support of Trump at multiple Republican National Conventions, and the pair spoke hours before Tuesday’s debate.

Meanwhile, closer to The Strip at MGM Grand this week, a diverse gathering of fans have attended the boxing grand arrivals, workouts and news conferences, supporting a sport long defined by its worldwide connection.

While the UFC card is honoring Mexican fighters, Trump might have found it politically slippery to support the “Noche” event since one of his Interstate 15 billboards on the way into town is headlined “Shut the border.”

“If we look at what boxing represents demographically, it’s a coalition of young, old, all different races and ethnicities. It’s a very global sport, very egalitarian,” said Stephen Espinoza, the former Showtime Sports President now serving as a consultant for Saturday’s Premier Boxing Champions’ card (on Amazon Prime Video and PPV.com) headlined by Mexico’s three-belt super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez versus Puerto Rican descendant Edgar Berlanga of Brooklyn, New York.

The card also includes Cuba’s World Boxing Association middleweight titleholder Erislandy Lara versus Philadelphia’s former two-division world titlist Danny Garcia.

“You’ve got guys who train in dusty gyms and guys who train in high-tech, high-performance gyms,” Espinoza said, speaking generally about boxing. “But they all have the same chances to succeed.

“In that way, boxing does embrace the best parts of democracy – in that it is open to all. It does welcome everyone. At the end of the day, how you got here and what you did to get here and who you are is secondary to how you perform and what you do. That’s a very democratic ideal.”

This week’s Alvarez-Berlanga news conference room has been occupied by opposing promoters including Tom Brown from Premier Boxing Champions and Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn.

Hearn, now representing WBC lightweight titleholder Shakur Stevenson, argued with WBA lightweight belt holder Gervonta Davis’ representative Leonard Ellerbe over who would win between the two unbeatens.

The disagreement between men who have berated each other on social media turned friendly, and perhaps it will add to the comfort of them reconvening to make what would stand as the most anticipated bout of 2025.

Meanwhile, there was plenty of disparaging talk from boxing’s brass about absent former Alvarez promoter Oscar De La Hoya, who has irked the industry leaders by touting that he’ll attend the UFC card because of his disdain for Alvarez.

“Someone can certainly make the analogy that, like democracy, boxing is messy,” Espinoza said. “In politics, it takes a lot of backroom negotiations, sometimes arm-twisting, sometimes sausage-making that isn’t pretty, and the same can be said in boxing. There are a lot of similarities.

“At the end of the day, it’s about the result, the outcome. It’s about providing what’s best for the country in politics, and it’s about getting to the finish line of a great [boxing] event.”

As Espinoza looked out through the media to observe the sometimes feuding rivals shaking hands and catching up, he agreed there are parallels to the way it works in Washington.

“Politics is very clubby, and whether it’s at a dining room, one of the political bars or a backroom on Capitol Hill, the same is true for boxing,” Espinoza said.

“Every big boxing event is like a miniature political convention. All the power brokers – all the participants – come together, not just to celebrate what’s going on, but to talk about what else can be done.”

Boxing’s fractured leadership is a sharp departure from the way White operates as the unmistakable head of the UFC.

It might not qualify as the dictatorship some Democrats believe Trump wants to install after presiding over the events of Jan. 6, 2021, before leaving office, and then telling a group this year that this will be the last election they vote in. But White and and his staff are fully empowered to assign their fighters to specific bouts.

That’s a major reason why MMA ascended in popularity, making the fights the fans wanted rather than follow the inept, non-communicative path boxing traversed before scheduling the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao superfight five years after it was primed to happen.

Those conflicting agendas present in boxing’s mish-mash of promoters and broadcasters still cause interference in the business of fight-making.

In boxing, the opposing groups are either forced to find a way to work together – to broker a truce – or they remain dug in and fail to satisfy their constituents as divided politicians do when they deprive citizens of necessary legislation.

When all the information is coming from one voice, however, the message can get warped, as the boxing contingent is claiming White is committing in discussing the events that moved him out of MGM properties and to The Sphere.

White said he is irked at MGM for giving away his date without first informing his contractual partner, and then added that MGM is guaranteeing Premier Boxing Champions a $25 million gate for Saturday night.

Not true on either count, PBC officials say. They moved quickly to book the date to re-secure Alvarez’s preferred Mexican Independence weekend date after he couldn’t make it happen last year.

Additionally, the boxing side disputes White calling his card a sellout, and there’s great interest in learning which card winds up with the richer live gate and produces better pay-per-view sales.

Promoter Brown sought to emphasize the quality of his card over the UFC’s, which will also be attended by boxing’s newest power broker, Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh.

“We don’t need movies or acts playing between our fights,” Brown said in reference to the estimated $22 million production of The Sphere card and Alalshikh’s move to invite Eminem to his Aug. 3 boxing show in Los Angeles.

Espinoza and White have engaged in several feuds since they worked together in 2017 to stage the second-richest pay-per-view fight of all time, between Mayweather and Conor McGregor.

“An obvious parallel” between the fight game and politics, Espinpza said, “is disinformation and misinformation. There’s misdirection that happens in politics, and the same is very true in combat sports.”

Whether the boxing card outsells the UFC presentation or vice versa won’t influence which presidential candidate wins Nevada or the election, but veteran fight promoter Bob Arum assesses boxing is as much Democratic-leaning as the UFC is MAGA-leaning.

White has previously ripped Arum and boxing promoters for “making every fight a going-out-of-business sale,” failing to re-invest in the sport as he has done by building training centers and staging shows like Saturday’s.

Arum has answered that boxers earn far more than UFC fighters, with Arum taking great pride in the social contributions of his former fighters, such as Muhammad Ali and recent Philippines presidential candidate Pacquiao.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Trump and Dana White are friends,” Arum said.

“I don’t want to get too philosophical about this, but I’ll be voting for Harris and she’ll be a great president. She wiped the floor with Trump in the debate.

“If it was a boxing match, the referee would’ve stopped the fight early.”

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.