The Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua announcement was supposed to happen on the South Lawn. It didn’t. On Tuesday, Dana White told Pat McAfee why, and he needed only one word.
“Yeah. Fckery [happened]. A lot of fckery has gone on since then,” White said. “And here we are. We finally got here. We have tickets on sale. Tickets did well. So it’s been interesting, but I knew these types of things were going to happen when I got involved in the sport of boxing.”
White didn’t spell out exactly what the f*ckery was. Anyone who watched UFC Freedom 250 this summer remembers what it produced on screen, though. Fury was one of the many celebrities at the White House card and got a brief segment talking to the camera. Plenty of people expected him to make the Joshua fight official right there. He didn’t, and the moment landed a little awkwardly. According to MMA Fighting, which first reported White’s comments, the original plan was to announce the bout at that event before other factors got in the way.
The fight is on now. Fury and Joshua meet Dec. 11 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, and White made his role clear. “We’re promoting and producing the fight,” he said. He added that when tickets launched, fewer than 700 were left, “which is basically considered a sellout.”
How it nearly came apart
The bout has been the biggest talking point in combat sports for months, partly because of the matchup and partly because of the public feud between White and Eddie Hearn over White’s involvement. At one stage that fight looked like it might sink the real one. All sides appear to have smoothed things over since.
Location was the biggest blocker. Joshua and Hearn insisted on the United Kingdom. White, who represents neither fighter, pushed for Madison Square Garden. Hearn and Joshua won. White gave them credit for it, saying Hearn pushed hard for the U.K. and the fight sold out an 80,000-seat stadium. He also noted that Frank Warren is involved in the promotion.
He still isn’t fully conceding the point. White said he believes a fight at Madison Square Garden, a five-hour flight from the U.K., would have sold out immediately as well, with the same energy in the building. He pointed to the Irish crowds that travel for Conor McGregor fights and to Ricky Hatton’s fights in Las Vegas.
He sounded genuinely excited about Cardiff, calling it “the biggest heavyweight fight ever in England” and predicting a split crowd. “You’re gonna have the A.J. fans, the Fury fans, and I guarantee you the arena is going to be electric that night,” he said.
My take: the only hard number in any of this is the ticket count, and it’s a good one for Hearn. Fewer than 700 seats left in an 80,000-seat building means more than 99 percent were gone at launch. That’s the stat that settled the MSG argument. White lost the location fight, admitted he lost it, and then argued for New York anyway. Very human, and I respect it. If you’d offered me Dana getting his way on the venue back in the summer, I’d have taken it at a short price and torn up the ticket by fall. He’s still promoting and producing the thing, so he got the part that pays. The rest gets settled in Cardiff on Dec. 11.
