Dana White: I watched Canelo’s fight with Caleb Plant, Kamaru Usman doesn’t want to box Canelo

Boxing and UFC both had big Saturday nights, with Canelo Alvarez stopping Caleb Plant in the 11th round to win the undisputed super middleweight championship on Showtime pay-per-view, and Kamaru Usman beating Colby Covington in the main event of UFC 268.

Earlier in the week, Usman said he’d love the chance to box Canelo, seeing it as a huge event fight. And while it may indeed be that if the deal could possibly get done, UFC boss Dana White dismissed Usman’s idea tonight.

“I watched the Canelo fight tonight. You don’t wanna fight Canelo,” White said with something of a chuckle. “You don’t wanna fight Canelo. Come on, man, let’s stop this shit. If Canelo wants to come over here, then let’s do it. But he don’t wanna box Canelo.”

White may be say a lot of things, but there’s clear truth here. As great an athlete and MMA fighter as Kamaru Usman is, he’d stand no legitimate chance in a boxing match with Canelo Alvarez. And while White would certainly love to rake in the monster cash from Canelo going to the Octagon to face Usman in UFC, he also knows that’s not going to happen, because the reverse is true of Canelo going into the cage; Usman would wash him unless Canelo landed a devastating punch in short order.

As much as we have seen MMA fighters “make the move to boxing” recently, it has to be noted that outside of the audacious Conor McGregor facing Floyd Mayweather in 2017 — four years ago, mind you — the fighters who have “made the move” have all been pretty washed up in their original sport. The likes Anderson Silva, Tyron Woodley, Ben Askren, Tito Ortiz — all former MMA champs, yes, but these were not particularly in-demand fighters in the MMA world anymore, with respect to them and their real careers, and with respect to Silva quite hilariously beating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, who is also rather irrelevant in his chosen profession.

I really wouldn’t expect to see another Mayweather-McGregor type of fight any time soon in a boxing ring, whether that be a Canelo-Usman idea or anything else.