Nakisa Bidarian on how Zuffa Boxing has “a similar playbook to” “their slap fighting league”

Nakisa Bidarian drew an interesting comparison between Zuffa Boxing and Power Slap when discussing some of the upcoming endeavors from Bidarian’s old business associate, Dana White. During an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, the Most Valuable Promotions figurehead touched on several subjects in the wake of MVP’s latest Netflix broadcast, which saw Anthony Joshua stop Jake Paul inside the distance.

The debut of Zuffa Boxing is set to go down, reportedly before UFC 324, and is around a month away, with little to no announcements in terms of bouts. When asked what the MVP promoter makes of the state of Zuffa Boxing at this juncture, with a clip from the overall interview posted by X user @jedigoodman, Bidarian said,

“Biggest thing I make of is Saturday, January 3rd boxing is back on DAZN. Long before Zuffa Boxing. Stephanie Han and Holly Holm are fighting and both of those fights are three minute rounds. That’s what I’m most excited and focused on. In terms of Zuffa Boxing, to make your debut in what appears to be The Apex, it’s a similar playbook to what they’ve done for their slap fighting league. Is they have a UFC event on the Saturday.”

Nakisa Bidarian thinks Zuffa Boxing is “not going to go away easily”

As the former UFC CFO further expounded upon why he created this comparison between those two Dana White-led brands, Nakisa Bidarian continued,

“They’re gonna fly in a bunch of VIPs. Give them a free hotel. Give them a free dinner and have them show up at The Apex centre and make it feel like it’s a big event. I hope it’s a successful debut for them. I know they haven’t announced the card as [of] yet but they’re extremely intelligent, extremely well capitalized, and they’re not going to go away easily, right.”

“So you have to take them seriously and it will be interesting to see what it is. But I know the playbook, I see exactly what they’re doing, and hopefully it’s successful for them.”