Tom Aspinall has raised serious concerns about Dana White’s new boxing league.
TKO Group Holdings, the American entertainment company behind UFC and WWE, recently penned a multi-year deal to establish a boxing league funded by Saudi Arabia.
UFC president White will head up the operation alongside Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh and WWE president Nick Khan.
The league will follow the UFC model with one champion per division and fewer weight classes.
It will certainly be easier to follow than traditional boxing, which has 17 weight classes and is governed by four major sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF).
However, UFC interim heavyweight champion Aspinall insists that the fewer and further apart weight classes are ‘dangerous’ for fighters.
“I personally don’t like extreme weight cutting, I think it’s dangerous,” he said of TKO’s model during an interview with the Daily Mail.
“If you dehydrate your body, dehydrate your brain, and then the next day you get in the Octagon and get punched repeatedly by someone who can really punch, I just think it’s unsafe. It shouldn’t be allowed.
“I’ve seen some guys in some absolute states cutting weight. It’s horrible to watch.
“I’m just sat there like, ‘I can’t believe you’re actually going to go and fight somebody tomorrow’.
“That is crazy. That shouldn’t be allowed.
“That being said, everyone’s going to always try and look for an advantage, aren’t they?
“And if they feel like their advantage is cutting weight and being the bigger guy, then I do understand why they might argue the benefits for them. But I don’t like it.”
This comes after White remarked: “We’re going to have the basic weight classes that started everything. We will have one champion.
“And you know how you’re going to know who the champion is because they’re going to fight their way up through the gauntlet.
“And once you get into the top five, you know who the five baddest dudes in the heavyweight division are.
“And then you’ll find out who the champion is. They will defend their titles, and that’s how it’ll work.”
The original boxing weight classes are: flyweight (112lbs), bantamweight (118lbs), featherweight (126lbs), lightweight (135lbs), welterweight (147lbs), middleweight (160lbs), light-heavyweight (175lbs) and heavyweight (200lbs plus).
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