Dana White Close to Walking Away From Fury vs Joshua Fight
Dana White said he is close to walking away from Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua, and he put the blame on Eddie Hearn. The UFC boss and Zuffa Boxing chief did not dress it up as a small disagreement over a venue.
Asked if he was ready to step off the heavyweight fight, White did not hesitate. “Yes, we’re literally fcking right there,” he said. “It’s fcking silly now.”
Then he aimed the rest of it at Hearn. “If Eddie Hearn doesn’t like it, then f*cking rip up the contract and do the fight yourself,” White said. “Whether this fight happens or not, my life goes on. I’m gonna do just fine.”
That is the temperature of a bout British boxing has waited a decade to see. Fury (36-2-1, 25 KOs) and Joshua (30-4, 27 KOs) are two former world champions with signed paper in the mix and still no date, no arena, and now a promoter saying he might leave the table.
White’s case is money and control. He said a United Kingdom staging means a lot less money, and that his job is to come in and figure out how to make both fighters and the other people involved money. In his view, Hearn is the man hurting that process.
“I’ve never seen a guy who is supposed to be the promoter of an event hurt the fight more than this guy has,” White said. He added that Hearn wants to think he is the promoter. Then he went further. “There is no fight.”
Hearn has said the opposite for months. Joshua’s longtime Matchroom promoter has argued the fight is contracted, that Joshua’s deal requires a United Kingdom site, and that White, Zuffa Boxing, and TKO cannot have promotional involvement without a new agreement. Hearn has also said you cannot simply walk away from a signed contract.
Those two stories cannot both be true in the same week. White is talking as if the deal is already dying. Hearn has talked as if the only way it dies is a breach.
The location is the wreck. Joshua’s side has pushed for Britain, with Wembley Stadium the sentimental choice and Cardiff’s Principality Stadium later entering the conversation because of a roof and a later curfew. The other side of the table has been linked to a United States date, with Madison Square Garden repeatedly named in talks and Netflix in the broadcast picture. None of that has been announced as official, and White’s comments make even that look shaky.
Fury, 38, stopped Mariusz Wach in seven rounds in Pattaya on July 24. Joshua, 36, was knocked down twice in the first round against Kristian Prenga in Jeddah the next night, then knocked him out in the second. Those were supposed to be the last warm-ups. Instead they became the last clean nights before the politics took over.
Fury has already thanked White in public for helping get a deal toward the line and for the Netflix piece of it. Days later he also claimed Joshua was backing out and threw Oleksandr Usyk’s name into the November window. White is now saying he is close to walking, which tells you how little gratitude is holding this together.
Hearn’s position, stated often, is that the original contract bars Zuffa and White, that Turki Alalshikh is the man bankrolling the event, and that any move to America has to be renegotiated on Joshua’s terms. White’s position is that Hearn should rip the paper up and promote it himself if he hates the way it is going.
The fighters are not kids. Fury has two losses to Usyk and no current world title. Joshua has four losses and a recent first-round scare against a man who was booked as a tune-up. The fight is still the biggest all-British heavyweight matchup the sport can sell. It is also late, messy, and now being discussed as optional by a man who said his life goes on either way.
White was clear that he is not Hearn. “I’m not Eddie Hearn. We are not the same,” he said. That is the insult and the business model in one sentence. One man is tying the fight to a British stadium and a clause. The other is tying it to a bigger check and a threat to leave.
November has been the target on every rumor mill. There is still no ticket, no ring walk, and no confirmation that the two men will share a ring this year. If White walks, Hearn will have to do what White dared him to do: rip up the fight as currently constructed and make Fury vs Joshua without him.
Whether this fight happens or not, White said, he is going to do just fine. Fury and Joshua cannot say the same. This is the fight that was supposed to settle a British argument. Right now it is an argument about who gets to sell it.