The World Boxing Organization and the International Boxing Federation will stage the first joint convention in their history this December, with officials from both bodies naming Zuffa Boxing as a central concern. The event is scheduled for December 9 through 13 at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida, and was announced as the IBF closed its 41st convention in Vietnam.
IBF president Daryl Peoples framed the collaboration as a response to shared pressures. According to BoxingScene, Peoples said the two organizations share roughly 85 percent of their membership and that he and WBO president Gustavo Olivieri concluded they could address a range of issues together. “So, in the first time in the history of all four organizations, the IBF and the WBO have decided to hold a joint convention,” Peoples said. He added that the agenda would include judging, refereeing and the administration of the sport, and that the bodies would “also address one of the bigger challenges called Zuffa.”
WBO vice president Leon Panoncillo described the partnership in cooperative terms. “We’re all family and trying to establish the same thing and that’s to give the opportunities to the fighters,” he said. “We’re very happy that we’re collaborating with the IBF. We’re going to make boxing bigger; the belts do matter.”
What the alliance is responding to
Zuffa Boxing, the promotional venture led by Dana White and Nick Khan, has signaled it intends to operate without the four major sanctioning bodies and has favored a model with fewer belts and reduced sanctioning-body control. The IBF and WBO are based in the United States and have positioned the convention as a forum to defend why their titles carry value.
The friction has already produced a concrete dispute. Jai Opetaia, previously one of the IBF’s leading beltholders, was stripped of his cruiserweight title after choosing to fight for the inaugural Zuffa belt in March. His efforts to keep the IBF strap on the line alongside the Zuffa title were unsuccessful.
Earlier reporting indicated the joint convention would feature unification bouts between WBO and IBF champions and would include shared seminars and awards sessions. The WBA and WBC, both of which have taken sponsorship from Turki Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season, are not part of the initiative.
Hearn turns up the volume
The institutional maneuvering has unfolded alongside an escalating verbal feud between Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn and White. In a clip posted by Fight Hub TV, Hearn dismissed White’s recent run and a previously floated fight between the two men.
“Dana’s having a nightmare,” Hearn said. “His UFC’s gone to pot, right? It’s having the worst year it’s had. The boxing stuff they’re doing is awful.” Hearn claimed White had called him out and then backed away from the matchup, and said White’s attacks had only raised his own profile. “Thank you, Dana. You’ve made me a huge star in America and our boxing business is flying,” he said, adding that he believed he was “living completely rent-free in Dana White’s head.”
White has not been shy about his ambitions for the promotion. In a sit-down with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, the UFC chief laid out the plan that the WBO and IBF are now organizing against. “I’ve been talking smack about boxing for a long time and it’s time to put my money where my mouth is,” White said. “I’m gonna get rid of the sanctioning organizations. The best will fight the best. We’re going to sign all the young, up-and-coming guys.”
