{"id":429749,"date":"2026-01-22T10:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/429749\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:36:21","slug":"as-zuffa-boxing-launches-usyk-could-be-on-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/429749\/","title":{"rendered":"As Zuffa Boxing launches, Usyk could be on the way"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EM3_9302.jpg\"<\/a>A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content \u2014 and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven\u2019t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.<\/p>\n

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As Dana White and his Zuffa Boxing prepare for its launch on Paramount+ on Friday (9 p.m. ET) at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, with a card headlined by a 10-round middleweight fight between Callum Walsh and Carlos Ocampo, the heavyweight champion could be headed to the company.<\/p>\n

Sergey Lapin, the team director for lineal and unified champion Oleksandr Usyk, who is a promotional and broadcast free agent, said this week that they are in talks with White about the possibility of joining Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is contact, there is dialogue, and interest exists (from Zuffa),\u201d Lapin told England\u2019s talkSPORT radio. \u201cDetails aren\u2019t for the public right now. Let\u2019s say a few doors are open, and if format, numbers, and timing align, the market could see a move nobody expects.<\/p>\n

Give a gift subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-429749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}