When reports surfaced that Conor Benn had signed a deal with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing for around $15 million, it didn’t just shake up boxing. It landed right in the middle of a long-running UFC pay debate. Fighters who’ve been vocal about tight margins and shrinking bonuses under the new Paramount+ model saw the headline and felt the contrast immediately. The optics were quite rough, especially with Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn publicly fuming over Benn’s sudden exit. It must be why TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro has now stepped in to control the narrative.

“Well, first off, I would say this story, to your point, has taken on a life of its own,” Shapiro said on a quarterly financial call. “That’s largely because Eddie Hearn is stirring the pot in a very fictional way. So as you know, our partner in Zuffa Boxing is SELA. They’re the financial backer of the entity. Beyond the year-long series of fight cards that will appear exclusively on Paramount Plus, we’ve described again and again on these calls and at conferences that we also plan to stage approximately two to four superfights per year.”

“Canelo Crawford being an example, some of which TKO will promote and or sell the media rights for, of course, incremental fees. We at TKO with SELA collectively identified Conor Ben as someone we wanted to sign for one of those superfights in 2026. That’s it, one fight in 2026.”

That was it, not a long-term roster deal. Not a face of the brand deal. Just one marquee slot. The money, which reports have pegged at around $15 million, is also being framed as outside TKO’s books. Shapiro wouldn’t confirm the figure, but he made the funding clear. As he explained, the reported purse “is not TKO going out of pocket,” it’s SELA covering it. In other words, TKO’s role is promotion and distribution. The risk sits solely with their Saudi backer.

That context matters because the backlash didn’t start in a vacuum. UFC fighters have been openly skeptical about pay changes since the promotion moved into its $7.7 billion Paramount+ deal and phased out pay-per-view points. When a boxer walks into an eight-figure payday under the same corporate umbrella, fighters notice the contrast, even if the accounting is technically separate.

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The Benn signing also poured fuel on the Dana White–Eddie Hearn rivalry. Hearn has framed the move as a betrayal after backing Benn through years of turbulence, including the fallout from failed drug tests and long legal battles. White fired back, saying Hearn had the opportunity to match their offer and failed to do so. But it’s not just the Matchroom boss who has been speaking out about the British boxer’s signing.

Sean O’Malley questions Conor Benn’s deal with Dana White and Zuffa Boxing

That tension spilled past promoters and straight into the locker room, and Sean O’Malley didn’t hide how jarring the numbers looked from a UFC fighter’s seat.

“For me, it’s so hard to believe, I’ve been told, Tim (Welch) told me, ‘Did you see that?’ It doesn’t mean it’s true,” O’Malley shared on his YouTube Channel. “I don’t know, it could very well be true. I can’t imagine it being true. Zuffa Boxing is like they’re paying out. I don’t even know who Conor Benn is.”

‘Suga’ also admitted he doesn’t follow boxing closely and wasn’t aware of Benn’s popularity before the signing, which is part of the shock. In MMA, stars grind through years of regional fights, Contender Series contracts, $10k-to-show deals, and bonus roulette before the money catches up. In boxing, the market works differently. Multiple promoters bid for fighters. The fighters’ purses climb because competition forces them up. Add the Ali Act into the mix, and boxers have legal protections that UFC fighters don’t.

The contrast hits harder when you zoom out. The UFC just paid $375 million to settle one antitrust case and is still fighting another. Those lawsuits hinge on claims that fighter pay has been suppressed in a closed system. Now put that next to a reported eight-figure boxing payday under the same corporate umbrella. Even if TKO says the money is coming from SELA and not UFC revenue, the optics still land on the fighters’ side of the ledger.

Sean O’Malley’s point wasn’t that Conor Benn doesn’t deserve his bag. It’s that the grind-to-reward ratio in Dana White’s UFC feels out of sync when a one-fight boxing deal can eclipse what top MMA stars see after years of building the brand.