The scrutiny against Zuffa Boxing just doesn’t seem to be stopping. While Dana White looks to present Zuffa Boxing as a UFC-like promotion, it’s garnering criticism for the same. The scrutiny does not stem from the matchups or signings. Instead, it was because of Zuffa Boxing’s attempt to rope in UFC’s support. But how exactly?

The leading MMA promotion has various activities scheduled during the build-up to an event. One such example includes hosting a Q&A session along with standout fighters, with the crowd present for the Ceremonial Weigh-Ins. On Friday, ahead of UFC 327 Ceremonial Weigh-Ins, the same flow of events took place, but with a twist.

Usually, UFC fighters grace the segment. This time, it was two of Zuffa Boxing’s new signings, Edgar Berlanga and Richardson Hitchins. However, that wasn’t the highlight; it was the lack of viewership for the segment. Notably, UFC’s official YouTube channel has over 22 million subscribers.

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Citing that, the general perspective was to garner a good amount of viewership. But it had only 0.001 % of the UFC’s subscribers on YouTube, that is just 225 at one point of the live stream. Not just that, the total accumulated viewership was also around 7,000, a massive difference from UFC’s general numbers.

For instance, two years ago, the UFC 300 Q&A livestream had a total of 193,000 views on it. But then again, the budding nature of Zuffa Boxing as a promotion can also be a factor behind the low attention. However, that is not the reason why the fans online have sparked their criticisms against the Dana White-led boxing promotion.

Fans react to Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing segment streaming on UFC’s channel

When Dana White, despite being the CEO of UFC, ventured into boxing, the expectations were to see a lot of crossovers between UFC and Zuffa Boxing. However, this is of course not in terms of fighters, but regarding promotional activities.

But despite the backing of the leading MMA promotion, the failure to get the viewership numbers has got fans dropping their reactions. First off, the majority of the netizens felt that the Q&A session was an unnecessary gimmick from Zuffa Boxing ahead of UFC 327.

“Why are they doing a Zuffa boxing promo at a UFC event? No one cares about that corny a** promotion, we only care about the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO,” a fan wrote. On top of that, another quipped in with a similar issue. “Who wants to watch Q&A, man, shut up, clickbait 😒,” the netizen commented.

Quite interesting reactions against Q&A as a segment for Zuffa Boxing. But that was not the only concern there. “Lol, why don’t they just create a Zuffa Boxing page and promote it there? Are they afraid they’ll have 0 viewers like slap fighting?” a user wrote.

This netizen particularly theorized as to why Zuffa Boxing livestreamed the Q&A session on UFC’s channel instead of their own. However, in general, all of their events go live on Zuffa Boxing’s official YouTube channel. Despite that, the views were quite concerning as another fan speculated why the numbers were less.

“No one wants to listen to: A Guy who thought it was bring your kid to work day, Corporate Stooge Max Kellerman, and a Kai Cenat lookalike,” the netizen commented. Apart from that, a few also noted how Zuffa Boxing, being under the TKO Umbrella, also uses WWE’s YouTube channel as well, which has over 113 million subscribers.

“They repost these on the WWE channel as well lol,” the fan chimed in. And lastly, a netizen came in with a unique theory behind the failed viewership for Edgar Berlanga and Richardson Hitchins’ Zuffa Boxing Q&A session.

“TKO doesn’t even know its core audience, which is why Zuffa is going to fall flat. They want to be cheap and roll this out with media while they’re at a UFC event/weekend, cool. MMA fans do not care, and you end up looking second-rate,” the fan commented.

Quite an interesting theory, considering how MMA fans often berate Boxing in comparison to their favorite sport. As such, they feel MMA as a sport gives a fighter several tools while Boxing restricts it. But then again, this is a subjective opinion among the fans.

That said, do you think Zuffa Boxing has made the right move to promote itself through UFC? Let us know in the comments below!