DANA WHITE has been forced to shelve ZUFFA Boxing’s inaugural event amid challenges posed by coronavirus, reports say.
The UFC president has long planned to make a move into the boxing business as a promoter.
And according to Journal de Montreal, White planned to stage the Claressa Shields vs Marie-Eve Dicaire title fight on December 11 in Las Vegas.
But, the proposal has now been axed due to problems caused by the Covid-19 crisis, The Athletic state.
And no rescheduling date has emerged either in a blow to Shields and other women champions like Amanda Serrano.
Before the UFC allowed Conor McGregor to fight boxing legend Floyd Mayweather in 2017, White first revealed plans to launch ZUFFA Boxing.
ZUFFA is an American sports promotion company owned by his close friends Frank and Lorenzo Ferttita.
The Ferttita brothers sold the UFC to WME-IMG – now known as Endeavor – for $4.4BILLION in 2016.
But White still wanted to launch a boxing promotion with ZUFFA and has been working on the scheme ever since.
Despite several hurdles since announcing the plan three years ago, the UFC boss told BT Sports his jump into boxing seems imminent.
He said in September: “I peaked under the hood a lot there for the last year.
“Looked at different things and I said, ‘I don’t know man, I don’t know if this is fixable.’
“Funny enough, since the pandemic I’ve been looking at other options too.
“And we’ll probably have something to announce here soon. When it’s time, I’ll let you know, I’m not ready yet.
