Zuffa Cements its Position as a Leading Boxing Promoter after Ryan Garcia's win

The future of Zuffa is looking very bright indeed after tremendous wins by Mexican-American, Ryan Garcia and Australia's hugely popular Jai Opetaia, on Saturday night. Jai had been poached by Dana White, and went some way to justifying the considerable investment, with a stoppage over the tough and savvy, Noel Mikaelian in the chief support.

That entertaining win has set the stage for a mouth-watering showdown between Opetaia and the WBA Cruiserweight champion, David Benevidez. In the post-fight press conference, Garcia dangled the prospect of Opetaia-Benevidez being staged alongside himself against Teofimo Lopez in a welterweight unification fight on Cinco do Mayo. He said this would "break the internet" and he's probably right.

Zuffa has played a blinder on Mexican Independence Day and if it can do the same again on Cinco de Mayo, it will show that it can put on the biggest fights on the most important dates in the American sporting calendar. Remarkable, considering Zuffa is a newcomer in boxing promotion.

It should be pointed out that Ryan Garcia does not box under the Zuffa banner. Not yet anyway. Ryan has only one fight left in his contract with Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy, and he made it clear at the press conference that he was extremely impressed with Zuffa's way of conducting business. He also voiced his disappointment that De La Hoya didn't take up his offer to accompany him into the ring, or indeed to even show up at the venue.

Dana White said there was a seat available for Oscar, despite the fact that there is no love lost between the pair. The veteran independent boxing journalist, Dan Rafael however, said De La Hoya had been been banned from attending. I tend to believe the latter.

Oscar it seems was excluded, in the same way he is likely to be excluded from Garcia's lucrative future.

While Dana White got most things right last night, a notable exception was the security. There's a time-honoured tradition of victorious champions squaring up in the ring with their next challenger. It's part of the pantomime around boxing and it gets the promotional ball rolling.

Security seemed unaware of this convention and tried to stop David Benevidez from entering the ring to face Opetaia. He managed to get through in the end, and his challenge was respectfully offered and accepted.

The WBA welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez however, didn't make it. He was piled on by half a dozen uniformed heavies, behaving as if they were foiling a terrorist plot. Perhaps these security agents were unable to distinguish world champion boxers from regular members of the public, in which case I would suggest they receive a briefing on who's who in the sport to avoid future embarrassment.

Of course, there may be a dark cloud on the horizon for Zuffa given the situation in the Middle East, that could affect its Saudi backers. But for the moment, Dana White must be a happy man.