Zuffa Boxing 10 had a world title fight, a hometown hero, and a roaring 3Arena crowd in Dublin on Saturday. What it did not have was ring card girls, and Dana White offered a five-second explanation for why. “The UK won’t use ring card girls unless you have ring card boys,” White said on streamer Nina Drama’s live broadcast from the event.

Ring card boys were not in attendance either.

Drama carried the card live on her Kick channel, billing the stream as featuring White along with WWE’s Becky Lynch and Finn Balor.

White’s comment referenced the UK, though Dublin sits in the Republic of Ireland, a distinction the Irish tend to feel strongly about. Zuffa Boxing 10 was the promotion’s first card in Ireland and its second outside the United States, following June’s event in Bournemouth, England. Both fell under the promotion’s multi-year Sky Sports agreement covering the UK and Ireland, with Paramount+ carrying the cards in the United States and Canada.

The ring card boy is not a hypothetical creature. Ultra White Collar Boxing, which runs charity shows across Britain, announced in 2018 that it would “continue to employ ‘ring girls’ (and boys where available) at all Ultra White Collar Boxing events,” calling the practice “part of the tradition of boxing,” as reported by Third Sector. The phrase “where available” suggests the supply of willing ring boys was not overwhelming. Formula 1 ended its use of grid girls the same year.

Not everyone in combat sports mourns the category. Khabib Nurmagomedov banned ring girls from his Eagle Fighting Championship promotion, telling reporters, “Look, I don’t want to offend anyone: Ring girls are the most useless people in martial arts. What is their function? I have a question. You can show that it is the second round on the screen,” in comments carried by Fox News via MMA Junkie. White has publicly defended the tradition throughout his UFC tenure, which made Saturday’s bare ring apron all the more notable.

The card itself delivered for the home crowd. Aaron McKenna (21-0, 10 KOs) won the vacant IBF middleweight title with a wide unanimous decision over Etinosa Oliha (22-1, 10 KOs), taking scores of 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112, and Callum Walsh (17-0, 11 KOs) climbed off the canvas after a first-round knockdown to defeat Tyler Denny (21-5-3, 1 KO) on the scorecards, as detailed in BoxingInsider’s results coverage. The rounds changed without ceremony.

Neither Zuffa Boxing nor the British Boxing Board of Control has published a formal policy on ring card presentation, and White did not specify which authority the requirement comes from. The promotion has said it plans at least five UK events per year under the Sky Sports deal, a figure White cited following Zuffa Boxing 07 in Bournemouth. Whether any of them feature ring card boys remains an open question.