History provides an important lesson that boxing entities would be wise to heed: history is unkind to incumbents who mistake possession for permanence. Kodak invented digital photography. It held the patents. It had the brand. It had the distribution. But it protected the old model while the marketplace shifted beneath it. The future did not defeat Kodak-- it bypassed it. In 1940, France built the Maginot Line — a masterpiece of fortification designed to prevent the last war from repeating itself. Germany did not attack it head-on. It went around it. Strength was not absent. The map had changed.
Boxing today does not lack firepower. The sanctioning bodies operate across seventeen or eighteen weight divisions (if you count bridgerweight), with regional titles, international rankings, and decades of recognition. Promoters hold television relationships, capital, and global infrastructure. On paper, the walls are intact. And yet the challenger speaks as though the perimeter is empty.
When Zuffa Boxing's Dana White recently described entering boxing as “like taking candy from a baby,” the phrasing was blunt. But beneath it was something more revealing than bravado: surprise at the absence of coordinated resistance.
Surprise that criticism arrived individually, not collectively.
 Surprise that no unified articulation of the existing system’s strengths materialized.
The debate has centered on a single number: three percent.
Three percent is what the four major sanctioning bodies charge boxers fighting for their title. Thefee is visible. It appears on a purse sheet. It can be pointed to, simplified, and criticized. But markets tend to reveal what arguments miss.
When Francis Ngannou stepped into the ring against Tyson Fury, the purse reflected open negotiation. When Conor McGregor boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr., the upside behaved differently than it does inside a centralized promotional contract. When Nate Diaz crossed over to face Jake Paul, the marketplace again demonstrated that flexibility has value. These were not sentimental exhibitions. They were economic decisions.
At the highest level of boxing, one night can generate earnings that many fighters in centralized systems will not approach across years. This is not a comment on toughness. It is a reflection of structure. The toll booth is easy to see.
Ownership of the highway is not. In boxing’s decentralized model, elite fighters negotiate independently. They can secure outside sponsorships. They can move between promoters. They can climb through regional titles toward larger opportunities. The system is imperfect and fragmented — but it is plural.
Zuffa’s model is centralized. Fewer divisions. One promotional ecosystem. Advancement defined internally. Commercial presentation standardized. Contracts that often span dozens of pages and define the entire economic relationship. Contracts do not grow to thirty-six pages by accident. They expand because contingencies are defined. Extension triggers clarified. Exclusivity reinforced. Dispute forums specified. In industries that have faced significant litigation and regulatory scrutiny, drafting becomes meticulous.
Length, by itself, is not the issue. Leverage is. Under the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, fighters operating in the United States retain statutory avenues to challenge certain promotional and sanctioning actions. That leverage exists outside the contract. If Congress revises the law in a manner that formally deems a centralized promotional model compliant, which is the case here, judicial review narrows. Courts interpret statutes; they do not rewrite them. Once compliance is codified, the perimeter shifts.
That is not a moral claim. It is an institutional one. Which brings the conversation back to the gate... The sanctioning bodies and major promoters possess a compelling counterargument to the 3% narrative. They can point to independent negotiation. They can point to crossover paydays. They can point to statutory protections. They can point to plural pathways and regional ladders that allow mobility. The arguments exist... The numbers exist... The precedent exists.
And yet... there has been no unified articulation of those strengths. History suggests that incumbents rarely lose because they lack resources. They lose because they defend the wrong terrain — or fail to defend it together. Fortresses are not surrendered when the walls collapse. They are surrendered when no one is certain who is standing watch. And when this chapter of the sport is revisited, it may not speak of conquest. It may not speak of sudden collapse. It may simply remember a moment when the gates stood open — and someone, almost incredulously, given the unattended gate, described the entry as “like taking candy from a baby.”
