We might be just a few weeks away from TKO Boxing’s first-ever event being confirmed.
WWE President and TKO board member Nick Khan recently said that an announcement regarding the new boxing promotion’s inaugural card could pop up in the next “4 to 6 weeks,” per a recent appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“If we’re mid-April now, I’d look for a big announcement on that for the next 4 to 6 weeks as to what our first card is gonna be and who’s gonna be on that card,” he said.
Earlier this year, TKO Group Holdings announced a partnership alongside Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh to launch a boxing league. While we still know little information about how the promotion will operate, a report from the New York Times wrote that they’re expected to sign “up-and-coming boxers” to exclusive deals.
Comments from UFC’s Dana White hinted that the promotion is expected to use a “model” similar to how UFC has built itself, likely providing an insular ecosystem with rankings and titles of their own: “The best will fight the best, and the fighters will continue to move up the rankings and become world champions.”
For Khan’s part, he told Simmons recently that they “Want it to be UFC and WWE-like.”
A report surfaced last week that TKO had been looking to change the Ali Act in the United States, a federal law that provided certain protections in the sport of boxing.
The law, which is meant to “Protect the rights and welfare of boxers” with rules in place like the sport not being “governed by any league,” has been in place for two-and-a-half decades. A spokesperson recently told ESPN that TKO is in “preliminary conversations with members of Congress” about how it could be retooled.
Khan’s full appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast can be watched here (Interview begins at 55:00).
