Ranking the top titans of the fight game: Where do Dana White, Canelo and The Rock land?

Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing InsiderSep 11, 2024, 07:46 AM ET
Close

Many of the most powerful figures in the fight game will converge on Las Vegas this week for a rare offering, one that features boxing’s top star, Canelo Alvarez, and the first live sporting event at the revolutionary Sphere with UFC 306.

Canelo’s unified super middleweight championship defense vs. long-odds underdog Edgar Berlanga and Sean O’Malley‘s UFC bantamweight title fight against Merab Dvalishvili will coincide Saturday evening, an unusual conflict of high-profile combat sports events in Las Vegas.

And with it, the fight game’s power players will all be represented in person between both events. There’s Turki Alalshikh, whose lucrative Riyadh Season sponsorship helped make it possible for Dana White and the UFC to hold an event at the exorbitantly priced Sphere. White said the cost of the immersive venue has topped $20 million. It’s the first pay-per-view event from White that isn’t simply billed as UFC followed by a numeral.

This time, it’s Riyadh Season Noche UFC, in what’s being promoted as a celebration of Mexico and its storied fighting history. But Mexico’s biggest sporting star will be in the ring two miles away.

That’s where Alvarez will showcase his influence again as he packs T-Mobile Arena for a fight against Berlanga. They’ll headline one of boxing’s storied holidays: Mexican Independence Day weekend, a slot long reserved for the sport’s top attraction.

There’s Alalshikh and White cageside in Las Vegas while boxing power broker Al Haymon’s PBC will deliver Alvarez’s fight at the MGM-managed property. Battle lines are drawn.

“Canelo’s one of those guys that I respect and hey, good on Haymon,” White told ESPN in late July. “Haymon snatched that date right away from me.”

Adding to the stakes is the dissonance between Alvarez and Alalshikh. Alalshikh has stated his interest numerous times in making a Canelo-Terence Crawford fight in February, perhaps the biggest fight in all of boxing.

“We will eat him,” Alalshikh told ESPN in late July about his event competing with Canelo’s.

“I’m not asking for the fight or wanting to do the fight or anything like that,” Alvarez told Fight Hub TV. “Maybe [Alalshikh] took it personally because it wasn’t the right time to talk about it and that’s what I said, but at the end of the day, that’s not my problem.”

With some of the biggest names going head-to-head on Saturday night in Las Vegas, who’s pulling the strings in the fight game? ESPN spoke to 30-plus industry power players — fighters, promoters, executives, lawyers, managers and media — to help determine who currently holds all the influence across boxing, MMA and pro wrestling and how they wield it.

We used the following methodology that’s ranked by order of importance:

• Autonomy: ability to influence one’s sport with unilateral decision-making power

• Money: access to funds to support deal-making

• Name recognition: ability to amplify one’s message and influence the marketplace

• Influence: ability to shift the landscape based on presence alone

15. Bob Arum | Top Rank founder

The 93-year-old Hall of Fame promoter still travels the globe as the figurehead of Top Rank. While he has delegated much of the day-to-day operations to his stepson and company president, Todd duBoef, he remains the central figure at the company and in the media. With its ESPN deal running until next summer (negotiated in 2018 by Nick Khan while at CAA), Arum still has the largest domestic boxing media rights deal along with a number of top prospects on his roster. In years past, when promoting the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao, Arum would have landed far higher on the list. But at the moment, the biggest names on the roster (Tyson Fury and Naoya Inoue) are partnerships with foreign promoters where Top Rank licenses international events for U.S. television. Neither has fought in the U.S. since 2021.

14. Oscar De La Hoya | Golden Boy Promotions founder

The former face of boxing remains a celebrity in his post-fighting days as a promoter, and he uses that name recognition to amplify his events. De La Hoya was a one-of-one megastar who produced numerous million-PPV-buy boxing matches by fighting the best opponents boxing could offer, and he has used that experience to deliver some big-time fights as a promoter. Golden Boy promotes one of the sport’s top stars, Ryan Garcia, who crossed that million-PPV plateau last year in a fight against Gervonta “Tank” Davis. De La Hoya also helped build Canelo into a star, though the Golden Boy’s influence waned when Alvarez left the promotion in 2018. Currently, Golden Boy boasts a media-rights deal with DAZN that pays around $18 million annually.

13. Jake and Logan Paul | Jake: Boxer/promoter | Logan: WWE wrestler

Jake and his older brother Logan have already far exceeded what anyone thought was possible in the fight game. What started as a novelty for Jake has turned into serious business as he approaches his Nov. 15 megaevent with Mike Tyson, Netflix’s first foray into boxing. Jake has now boxed 11 times professionally, knocking out a slew of recognizable former UFC fighters in the process. He hopes to win a cruiserweight world title in 2025, and his promotional company MVP (led by former UFC CFO Nakisa Bidarian) has a busy slate of fights on DAZN (women’s star Amanda Serrano is among its fighters.) Logan stars in the WWE, where he has wowed with his athleticism and quick grasp of the art form. He has starred in several high-profile matches and had a lengthy run as U.S. champion. Logan’s Prime drink is the first ring-mat sponsor in WWE history and also boasts a partnership with the UFC. His 2021 exhibition boxing match with Mayweather generated approximately 1 million PPV buys.

12. Tony Khan | AEW founder

The son of Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C. owner Shad Khan, Tony established the clear No. 2 wrestling promotion in the world, providing fans an alternative to WWE that focuses on the technical aspects of the art. Armed with a media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, AEW quickly found success after its launch in 2019. Still, its popularity pales in comparison to WWE’s; AEW’s TV ratings have dipped after top stars Cody Rhodes and CM Punk returned to WWE in recent years as Levesque took charge of WWE’s creative. Khan, who also oversees AEW’s creative team, is outspoken on social media, where he has fanned the flames of controversy within wrestling, particularly in regards to Punk’s departure from the promotion.

11. Faisal Bafarat/Dr. Rakan Hussain Alharthy | GEA/Sela Company

Bafarat is involved in Saudi Arabia’s lucrative business with WWE, a partnership that started in 2018 and paved the way for boxing and MMA in the Kingdom. Alalshikh struck the 10-year deal reportedly worth around $100 million annually for the WWE that delivers multiple Premium Live Events to Saudi Arabia each year, but Bafarat is across the relationship on a day-to-day basis and has helped to expand the partnership. That includes the first-ever WWE “Raw” in Saudi Arabia in November, which will follow the annual Crown Jewel event. In addition, there are efforts underway to bring one of WWE’s tentpole events to Saudi Arabia in the near future. Alharthy, meanwhile, is involved in all of Saudi Arabia’s lucrative business with Riyadh Season boxing and UFC events with his Sela Company team, the executive arm of GEA. Alharthy and the Sela team handle contracts for Riyadh Season events and he is instrumental in the business dealings with venues, promoters, fighters, etc. He’s often seen facing off fighters and is trusted by Alalshikh to strike deals that further commercialize Riyadh Season.

10. Al Haymon | Premier Boxing Champions founder

The Harvard man has run boxing for years with a roster of nearly 100 fighters. Lately, that power has waned with the expiration of PBC’s media rights deal with Fox alongside longtime broadcast partner Showtime Sports’ exit from boxing. PBC’s talent pool isn’t what it once was either, as many fighters have aged out, led by former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Despite being rarely seen in public, Haymon still wields considerable influence in boxing through his partnerships with Alvarez and “Tank” Davis supported by a roster that has depth.

“Al Haymon is still one of the most influential people in boxing,” boxing manager Keith Connolly told ESPN. “A lot of people tried to count him out over the last couple of years and as usual, he proved them wrong by putting together some of the biggest pay-per-view fights of the last year-and-a-half. Al will always be a powerhouse in the sport until he decides to retire from boxing.”

Canelo will headline a PBC PPV for the third consecutive fight on Saturday, while Haymon helped build Davis into a top American boxing star, a fighter who still competes under the PBC banner. PBC is in the first year of a new TV partnership with Amazon’s Prime Video.

“He has always been a genius as far as maximizing what high-level boxers can make over the course of their careers,” Connolly said. “That’s his gift.”

9. Eddie Hearn | Matchroom Sport chairman

Hearn revolutionized boxing in the U.K., bringing marquee events to England with Anthony Joshua, whom he helped build into a star after Joshua’s Olympic super heavyweight gold medal win in 2012. As heavyweight champion, Joshua has sold out Wembley Stadium in London and Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, with Hearn at the controls as the promoter.

“I appreciate Eddie and the business he has built with Barry [Hearn] and the rest of the team,” Joshua told ESPN. “Being a part of the Matchroom family has been a real blessing for me and my own family. From where we began to where we are now, the journey has been phenomenal. That’s not just for me personally, but all the fighters he works with.”

Hearn has made waves in the U.S., too, becoming the first British promoter to deliver a robust schedule stateside, and welcoming DAZN into the boxing landscape when they entered the U.S. market in 2018. Three years later, DAZN replaced Sky Sports as the top provider of fights in the U.K. after it struck another deal with Hearn and Matchroom. With Hearn’s considerable following and media presence, particularly in the U.K., he’s able to effectively drive narrative.

“I don’t know many people who have the work ethic and integrity Eddie has, he will be in the game for many many years to come doing massive things,” Joshua added.

8. Hunter Campbell | UFC chief business officer

Campbell is instrumental in crafting UFC’s business deals and putting together the company’s PPV fights alongside White. White trusts the attorney to do it all for UFC on the business side, including dealing with 700-plus fighters and their representation with contracts and handling all top-level legal affairs.

“We’ve always had a lawyer involved on the fight side of things because obviously there’s contractual issues … and no one has ever done it as good as Hunter has,” White told Sports Business Journal about Campbell. “He’s super passionate about the sport, he’s super passionate about fighting and he’s a f—ing great lawyer.”

He can always be seen cageside alongside White, and if anyone wants to make something happen with the UFC, they need to go through Campbell, too. He’s the man pulling the strings behind the scenes while White is out front and center.

7. Conor McGregor | Top MMA star

McGregor hasn’t stepped into the Octagon since July 2021, but he remains a force in the fight game capable of generating major business anytime he’s ready to fight again. As the UFC enters a media rights negotiation next year, McGregor’s presence looms large. Any network ready to enter business with White and the UFC surely will inquire about one of the top stars in combat sports, a man who has crossed over into pop culture. He starred in the blockbuster reboot of “Roadhouse” alongside actor Jake Gyllenhaal. And there’s also McGregor’s 2017 boxing match with Mayweather, which produced a staggering 4.3 million PPV buys.

“Conor is capable of doing anything, man,” White told ESPN earlier this summer. “He knows what he’s doing. He knows what he wants to do. He’s very calculated in what he does.”

Before he broke his toe, McGregor was slated to return against Michael Chandler this summer, and his star power remains so bright that Chandler has waited around for a rescheduled date. Similar to Canelo, McGregor transcends the sport to the extent that he has branched out into other business ventures. He and his partners sold a majority share in Proper No. 12 Irish Whiskey for approximately $600 million in April 2021. Earlier this year, McGregor became a part-owner of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.

6. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson | Top pro wrestling star; TKO board of directors

One of the top attractions in Hollywood, The Rock made his return to WWE in-ring action this year with an incredible comeback after 11 years out of the ring. There was no doubt Johnson possessed the charisma and promo skills to drive the top storyline leading into WrestleMania XL, but there was doubt about his in-ring ability one month shy of his 52nd birthday. He exceeded expectations and is primed for another WrestleMania run next year. The Rock’s return resulted in record attendance and TV ratings during his 12 TV appearances in 2024, including the top U.S. gate in the history of “Raw.”

“Dwayne is a textbook example of the hard work and determination required to become a true multi-hyphenate,” Ariel Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor and TKO, told ESPN. “In fact, he wrote the playbook for so many who have come up after him: athletes and entertainers alike.”

Johnson is now on the board of TKO, part of a deal where he acquired the rights to his famed “The Rock” moniker. That board seat gives him influence in shaping both WWE and the UFC, and the new role was a key part of his “Final Boss” persona during the lead-up to WrestleMania.

“Dwayne translated his early success in the ring into success as an actor, film producer, and entrepreneur, and now he’s come full circle as a member of our TKO board,” Emanuel said.

5. Paul “Triple H” Levesque | WWE chief content officer

Since the inception of the then-WWF in 1982, Vince McMahon was in charge of the company’s creative direction, crafting storylines and deciding which wrestlers to get behind. Now it’s Levesque, a top star during his WWE in-ring run from 1995 to 2022, who was well-regarded for his wrestling mind and storytelling ability. Levesque (who’s married to McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie) is effectively the face of WWE, well-liked by fans and wrestlers alike for his improved product and innovative creative direction that best utilizes the unique skill sets and personalities of performers.

“Triple H in the ring had world-champion instincts long before he ever was one,” WWE champion Cody Rhodes told ESPN. “He applies those instincts expertly today as chief content officer. He was also amongst a handful of players ahead of the curve in terms of evolving the sport which he showcased with the NXT black-and-gold era.”

Levesque has autonomy over WWE’s storylines (supported by his writing team) and with it his performance is directly tied to the success of the business. The Bloodline storyline featuring Roman Reigns, The Rock and the long lineage of Samoan wrestlers has reenergized the roster and fan base.

“When the moment came for him to take over with Nick Khan and lead the ship creatively, he helped guide WWE to massive television ratings and social engagement increases,” Rhodes said. “I take the field for him with immense pride.”

4. Canelo Alvarez | Top boxing star

Alvarez is the lone athlete in the fight game who forces others to wait around for him in hopes of landing a life-changing payday, often in the eight figures. Canelo calls shots that fellow stars like McGregor can’t due to their contractual limitations. Anytime Alvarez fights it’s a marquee event, pulling hundreds of thousands of PPV buys and eight figures at the gate. The all-time great boxer’s career is winding down at 34, but his star power hasn’t waned. He’s crossed the million-PPV plateau four times and has earned hundreds of millions of dollars during his career. He’s an icon in Mexico with business ventures ranging from alcoholic drinks, gas stations and healthcare programs. As a promotional free agent and the top boxing draw in the U.S., Alvarez wields considerable power as he picks and chooses whom he will fight and what company will promote his events.

“In any sport, it’s only the biggest of stars who can call their own shots,” Hall of Fame boxing promoter Lou DiBella told ESPN. “Canelo has been that guy for a long time in boxing and he has maximized his autonomy and ability to jump around where the money is greatest. In the ‘Dodge City of sports,’ you have to be a smart guy, with a good lawyer, to do that.”

When he left Oscar De La Hoya and DAZN well before the expiration of his 11-fight, $365 million deal in November 2020, it seriously damaged both parties. Alvarez drove hundreds of thousands of subscribers to DAZN while Golden Boy lost out on millions in rights fees from the streaming service along with other revenues related to his fights.

“What makes Canelo so different is that he’s used his leverage smartly, without many of the missteps that I’ve watched other stars make forever since my HBO days,” DiBella said. “He’s made a fortune, built a historic résumé, stayed healthy, jumped between platforms, and burnt virtually no bridges. That’s f—ing good use of star power in combat sports!”

3. Nick Khan | WWE president; TKO board of directors

Khan was once the longtime powerful agent and co-head of TV at Creative Artists Agency, where he represented many of the top broadcast talents and negotiated media rights megadeals for the SEC, Top Rank Boxing and WWE. He joined WWE in 2020 and helped quickly grow the business (and took over as the No. 1 when McMahon exited the company earlier this year). Khan was instrumental in the development of an extensive merchandise partnership with Fanatics, the WWE signing lucrative TV deals with Netflix ($5 billion over 10 years) and NBC Universal ($1.4 billion over five years), and expanding the promotion’s sponsorship portfolio.

“Nick Khan is a unique force in the sports and entertainment world,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson told ESPN. “Excellent leader, strong business acumen and one of the visionary strategists in the game.”

WWE has enjoyed record-setting revenue and profitability under Khan’s leadership. He spearheaded WWE’s global expansion, gobbling up government subsidies for premium live events that formerly were centered stateside (eight will take place outside the U.S. this year). Khan was also instrumental in navigating WWE’s merger with UFC to form TKO Group where he sits on the board of directors. Before Khan became an agent, he managed Hall of Fame boxers Pacquiao and James Toney.

“He’s redefined WWE’s global presence and has set new benchmarks in the industry across all verticals. Nick’s become a close and trusted consigliere to me as well as being an absolute killer — the kind you want in the foxhole with you,” Johnson said.

2. Dana White | UFC president

White built UFC into an empire after he took the reins in 2001, bringing MMA into the mainstream with his ability to promote and grow the sport around the globe. A sport that was once banned in New York now delivers a yearly major event at Madison Square Garden and monthly PPVs on ESPN+, a testament to White’s selling power. The UFC is a multibillion-dollar company whose brand is bigger than any one fighter, and White remains incredibly hands-on in shaping and fine-tuning his product.

“Dana White is a force of nature,” Mark Shapiro, president and COO of Endeavor and TKO, told ESPN. “His passion and fearlessness are undeniable.”

While boxing is splintered and unorganized, White’s UFC is a behemoth surrounded by major sponsors and a lucrative media rights deal. White also played a key role in the multibillion-dollar merger with WWE to form TKO under Endeavor. White seemingly has accomplished everything possible with the UFC, and the only question now is how much longer he remains in his current role before moving on to a new challenge.

“When you consider the fact that UFC is only 30 years old, his work is even more remarkable: by sheer grit and determination, he has turned what was largely a pariah in the sports industry just a few years ago into a global juggernaut that has other majors taking notes,” Shapiro said.

1. Turki Alalshikh | Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority

Since coming to the worldwide sporting public eye in 2023, Alalshikh has quickly and swiftly coalesced immense power throughout boxing, MMA and pro wrestling, utilizing Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to back lucrative entries into each. His influence is strongest in boxing, where he single-handedly revitalized the heavyweight division with the money (and promotion) necessary to make and commercialize top events in the sport’s glamor division. The crown jewel of his efforts was May’s Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury undisputed championship fight that proved too costly and problematic to finalize before he stepped in. He has stacked the undercards of his Riyadh Season events — a festival of entertainment acts used to commercialize Saudi Arabia — eschewing the traditional boxing model. And he has now stepped outside Saudi Arabia to deliver big-time boxing; Alalshikh brought Crawford to Los Angeles last month in an event that also included an Eminem concert. Later this month, he’ll bring a heavyweight title fight between Joshua and Daniel Dubois that will reportedly attract 95,000-plus fans at London’s Wembley Stadium.

“Boxing was going downhill before Turki and Riyadh Season became involved,” Crawford told ESPN. “The sport had lost imagination. But he’s brought back big fights on a regular basis and given them the promotion they deserve. And it’s not about the money; Turki is succeeding because he treats boxers like friends and partners, not enemies to be exploited. Some are intimidated by his efforts. … He is here to fix the greatest sport in the world. And he will do it.”

There’s also the hefty sponsorship of Saturday’s UFC Sphere event (along with the debut of UFC in Saudi Arabia this past summer with plans for another next year). Alalashikh was also instrumental in luring major WWE events multiple times a year to Saudi Arabia as part of a 10-year deal signed in 2018.