Dana White is not just signing fighters. He’s rearranging boxing’s power map.
Zuffa Boxing’s deals for Conor Benn and Jai Opetaia looked, on the surface, like splashy headline moves to launch a new era. In reality, they were opening gambits in a far bigger game: positioning Zuffa and TKO to pounce on Ryan Garcia and David Benavidez the moment both hit free agency.
Garcia and Benavidez each have one fight left on their current deals. One more walk to the ring before the doors swing open. White and TKO have made sure that when they do, Zuffa is the first thing they see.
Ryan Garcia: A star looking for a home
The fracture between Ryan Garcia and Oscar De La Hoya has been visible for years. Public spats, lawsuits, veiled shots. Beneath it all, a simple truth: Garcia has been searching for a promoter who makes him feel like the centerpiece, not a cog.
He got a taste of that life in April 2023.
Garcia’s showdown with Gervonta “Tank” Davis — a PBC promotion on Showtime — was a watershed moment. The numbers were staggering: 1.2 million pay-per-view buys, a $22.8 million gate. But the real impact was emotional. Garcia experienced what a fully loaded, big-time machine feels like when it’s built around him.
In the aftermath, he sued Golden Boy in an attempt to break free. He failed then. He won’t need a court next time. With just one fight left on his Golden Boy contract, he can simply walk.
Zuffa and TKO understood the assignment. They paid Conor Benn more than $30 million across two fights not just to have Benn, but to build the stage for Garcia. The Benn fight did for Garcia what the “Tank” fight did: it made him feel like the event.
The promotion around Garcia-Benn was loud, polished, relentless. It ran through Zuffa and Paramount+. Garcia soaked in the spotlight and, speaking to Uncrowned on Monday, he made it clear how content he was under Dana White’s banner. The timing couldn’t have been better.
The fight itself was technically a Ring Magazine-funded show. You wouldn’t know it. Every camera angle, every graphic, every shoulder program screamed TKO and Zuffa. White stepped fully into the role of promoter, not just for Benn, but for Garcia.
De La Hoya? Absent. No press conferences. No face time. No fight-night presence. That wasn’t an oversight; it was strategy. The message to the public was simple: Ryan Garcia is a Zuffa guy now. The message to Garcia was even clearer: this is what your future could look like.
The building has already started.
Conor Benn: The one that broke Eddie Hearn’s heart
Signing Benn wasn’t just about Garcia. It was also about inflicting maximum damage on Eddie Hearn and Matchroom.
Benn was one of Hearn’s chosen few — mentioned in the same breath as Katie Taylor and Anthony Joshua as a true Matchroom original. A fighter Hearn had nurtured from the beginning. A fighter he defended publicly and aggressively through the storm of multiple failed drug tests for clomiphene.
Hearn stood by him. Benn walked.
When Benn crossed to Zuffa, it wasn’t just a commercial hit. It was personal. It shattered the illusion that certain fighters were untouchable, that loyalty could withstand the pull of a bigger check and a bigger platform.
The signal was brutal: nobody is safe. Every fighter, from any promoter, can be targeted. If the old-guard promoters can’t match the money or the infrastructure, they’ll be left watching their stars walk away.
Bob Arum once warned: “Don’t fall in love with your fighters because they will break your heart.” De La Hoya learned it. Arum lived it. Now it’s Hearn’s turn.
Benn’s value to Zuffa runs deeper than the emotional blow. He’s a major star in UK boxing and a key to that market. His arrival helped Zuffa secure a lucrative UK television deal with Sky Sports and gave the promotion an instant foothold in one of boxing’s most important territories.
One move. Multiple wounds inflicted.
Jai Opetaia: The key to Benavidez and the war on belts
While Benn was breaking hearts, Jai Opetaia was opening doors.
On the Garcia-Benn card, Opetaia stopped Noel Mikaelian in nine rounds and wasted no time calling out David Benavidez. Benavidez, seated at ringside, was ushered into the ring for a face-off. It was a clear statement: there’s a path here, and it runs straight through Zuffa.
Benavidez has one fight left with PBC and Sampson Lewkowicz. Dana White has made no effort to hide that “The Mexican Monster” is on his hit list.
Benavidez’s journey has been a study in frustration and ambition. At 168 pounds, he was widely seen as the most proven threat to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, but the fight never materialized. He moved up to 175, chasing Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev. Those fights didn’t land either.
Now he’s at cruiserweight, staring at the chance to fight the consensus No. 1 in the division. Beat Opetaia, and Benavidez has a legitimate claim as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport.
He’s shown time and again that he’s a legacy fighter. He wants the toughest names. He wants the challenges people insist he can’t overcome. Offer him Oleksandr Usyk at heavyweight and you’d expect him to nod and say yes.
Zuffa is dangling exactly what he craves: a marquee opponent in Opetaia and a pile of money to go with it.
There’s more. Garcia and Benavidez have already talked about sharing a card next May. If Zuffa secures Garcia, it gains enormous leverage to bring Benavidez in for at least one fight. One night under that promotional machine may be all it takes to convince him that his future belongs there.
It worked on Garcia. Zuffa is betting it can work again.
Opetaia vs the sanctioning bodies
Opetaia is more than just Benavidez’s potential dance partner. He’s also a weapon in Zuffa’s long-running war with boxing’s sanctioning bodies.
That conflict has quieted in public as Zuffa has done more business with the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO. But the endgame has never shifted: Dana White wants to challenge their grip on the sport.
Opetaia is the perfect vehicle.
He has made no secret of his desire to become undisputed, to collect every belt. Instead, he’s watched the alphabet organizations undercut him. The IBF stripped him in March. On Saturday, he beat WBC champion Noel Mikaelian, only for that belt to be declared vacant less than 48 hours later.
To fans, it’s absurd. The man widely regarded as the best cruiserweight in the world holds no major title. The IBF and WBC look like they’re punishing the division’s standout fighter rather than elevating him.
Opetaia hasn’t taken it quietly. After the IBF stripped him, he filed a lawsuit accusing the organization of unlawfully taking his title in retaliation for signing with Zuffa. That turns him from a frustrated champion into a legal spearhead in Zuffa’s campaign against the belts.
He’s no longer just Exhibit A in their argument. He’s the one driving it.
The endgame: Garcia, Benavidez and a post-Canelo America
Conor Benn and Jai Opetaia were big signings. But they were never the final destination.
Benn gave Zuffa a direct line to Ryan Garcia and a chance to wound Eddie Hearn. Opetaia opened a lane to David Benavidez and offered a live case study in the flaws of the sanctioning system.
Garcia and Benavidez sit at the heart of the plan. In the looming post-Canelo era, they could easily become the twin faces of American boxing — one a crossover star with massive mainstream reach, the other a ruthless, all-action destroyer chasing greatness across divisions.
Zuffa hasn’t signed either man. Not yet. But before they’ve even reached free agency, Dana White has already laid out the board, placed the pieces, and shown both fighters exactly what life could look like on the other side.
TKO’s war on boxing’s old order is only just beginning.
The real question now is simple: when Garcia and Benavidez finally get to choose, whose flag will they be carrying into the ring?
