Eddie Hearn admits he doesn’t care if TKO produces Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua and destroys Zuffa Boxing’s ‘terrible’ debut

There might be light at the end of the tunnel for the ongoing war between Eddie Hearn and Dana White.

Over the past few months, and especially over the past few weeks, Hearn and White have been involved in heated exchanges across the media surrounding the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua superfight taking place in December. The issue largely concerns White’s involvement in the fight, and while speaking with Ariel Helwani on Tuesday, Hearn provided an update on the drama.

“Probably the biggest issue here is that Netflix and TKO don’t necessarily understand our contract and its strength,” Hearn said. “They just don’t work together. And whether it was untoward or whether it was planned, whatever it was, when that press release came out, obviously the shit hit the fan. Because it’s like do you understand that that would be a deal breaker? Netflix said, ‘Whoa, that’s not our deal.’ And then that put the fight in jeopardy.

“This could have been resolved many, many weeks ago, but the arrogance of people and their refusal to acknowledge a contract and just tell the truth changed the game and the direction of this situation and this fight.

“I’m happy to sit down, but after everything you’ve said, your attitude and the biggest war that’s going on in boxing, this isn’t going to go the way you thought it would,” Hearn added. “And I had to make sure they knew what we were talking about. I had to make sure I got their attention. … We weren’t going to let them run over us. It’s just not in the DNA.”

While Hearn may be ready to work things out, White doesn’t seem interested in doing so, at least publicly, instead continuing to insist that he’s already involved in the fight. And in another attempt at an olive branch from Hearn, he says he’s not even opposed to White and TKO stepping in to produce the series, but it needs to be discussed, not imposed on them.

“The one that Netflix uses,” Hearn replied when asked who would handle production for the event. “Who did they use, Whisper, last time? You have the Jake Paul events. There’s a series of major events that have already happened on Netflix. And by the way, I don’t necessarily care if TKO produces the event, but contractually it’s a violation.

“So you can’t have the arrogance to assume that you can go ahead and now start saying, ‘Well, I’m not the promoter, but I’m now the producer.’ You can’t. This is according to the same clause of the agreement.

“So we’ll have to deal with that. But I don’t – it’s really just their attitude that makes it what it is. Because if you contact me – and people will tell you – we’ll talk about it. And maybe we’ll come to an agreement.”

For Hearn, a lot of this battle is about respect, and White’s apparent lack of respect, as the two have fought all year since White moved into the boxing business with Zuffa Boxing.

“As I said before, that could be the case if we allow it,” Hearn said. “And I’m not against it. I don’t care who produces the event. It’s not my fight. I have a fighter in the fight. But I also know what we signed, where we are contractually and, because of what happened, how I’m going to react if someone comes along and tries to say, ‘Oh yeah, well, we’re doing this, we’re doing that. What do you think of this?!”

“It’s like child’s play, but it’s also going to make me childish, because that’s the ego of the war we’re in. And they would do the same thing. Of course they would.”

But mostly, Hearn believes all this pushing from White is simply a way to cover up the fact that Zuffa Boxing hasn’t delivered everything White initially promised. Although Zuffa has competed in a few major fights this year, most of his events have not attracted serious attention, and Hearn says White is trying to use his connections with Turki Alalshikh – who funds Fury-Joshua – to boost Zuffa’s profile amid a poor start to the promotion.

“Turki Alalshikh owns Zuffa Boxing. He is the largest shareholder in Zuffa,” Hearn said. “Of course he’ll want to see these guys succeed. He’ll want to see impressive work. And the problem is, right now, it’s a disaster, and that automatically gives them a boost, to make the world feel like, ‘We’re the greatest promoters in the world, because look what we’re promoting!’ The greatest boxing fight!”…

“You have nothing to do with this fight. You are using this fight to pretend that your ‘work body’ that you keep talking about is impressive. But when you strip it down, as they say in the UK, to a fur coat, no panties. And that’s what Zuffa is. …

“I’m sorry, with this money, with this contract, with these links with Turki Alalshikh, let’s be honest, the first 10 months were absolutely catastrophic.”