{"id":719554,"date":"2026-06-06T19:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719554\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T19:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:12:09","slug":"dana-whites-zuffa-boxing-hit-with-first-lawsuit-over-fighter-poaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719554\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White\u2019s Zuffa Boxing Hit With First Lawsuit Over Fighter Poaching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Zuffa Boxing has only been staging fights for six months, but the growing promotion led by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO, Dana White, has already been hit with its first lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">According to a report by <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/boxing\/article\/dana-whites-zuffa-boxing-hit-with-lawsuit-from-boxxer-over-alleged-unlawful-contractual-interference-172712952.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yahoo Sports<\/a>, Zuffa Boxing is being sued by Ben Shalom\u2019s BOXXER over allegations of unlawful contractual interference involving European boxers Chris Billam-Smith and Sam Hickey. Both fighters will be in action this afternoon (Sat., June 6, 2026) at Zuffa Boxing 7 from Bournemouth, Dorset, England. It marks the promotion\u2019s official debut on European soil and first event outside of UFC\u2019s Meta Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Nothing like an untimely lawsuit to spoil the fun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">According to Shalom, Billam-Smith was still in an exclusive negotiating period with BOXXER at the time of his Zuffa Boxing signing. Billam-Smith has previously stated that his contract with BOXXER expired at the end of 2025, but now it appears that may not be completely true. BOXXER claims they had the right to match any offer to Billam-Smith, which would have included the one made by Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In Hickey\u2019s case, BOXXER is claiming that the Scottish fighter was still under a long-term contract when he signed with Zuffa Boxing back in May. Hickey is just 4-0 as a professional boxer, but the 26-year-old has a lot of potential moving forward. If BOXXER is able to prove he was still under contract then that could cause some issues for Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">What do you think about all of this? Is Zuffa Boxing kicking in too many doors in pursuit of a boxing takeover? How will this lawsuit play out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zuffa Boxing has only been staging fights for six months, but the growing promotion led by Ultimate Fighting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,43957,786,40762,785,85],"class_list":["post-719554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing-news-results","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719554","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=719554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}