Dana White is not producing Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua, according to the man holding the paperwork. Eddie Hearn said Tuesday that Sela, the Saudi event promoter, confirmed to his side in writing that White and the UFC are off the production for the heavyweight fight. Saudi-backed company Whisper is running the broadcast instead.
“Sela has confirmed to us in writing that Dana White and the UFC are not doing the production for this show,” Hearn said. Jed I. Goodman clipped the comments and posted them to X, and MMA Mania and MiddleEasy both wrote them up.
Whisper handled production for Fury’s fight with Makhmudov, and Hearn said the company has the contract to produce Fury vs. Joshua on Netflix. White has been saying he still plans to produce the event for television. Hearn’s answer was short. “Under our contract, he can’t,” he said.
He did leave the door cracked. If White’s side wants to reopen the production terms, Hearn said he’ll listen. “I’m open to a conversation. Show me how it looks.”
This is the second lap of the same fight. Hearn, who manages Joshua, said early on that Joshua had a signed contract stating the Fury bout would take place in the U.K. and that TKO, the UFC’s parent company, would have nothing to do with it. White had his own picture: TKO as lead promoter and the fight at Madison Square Garden. After a stretch of sniping in the press and behind closed doors, the fight landed at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. That result is why MMA Mania’s headline had Hearn up 2-0.
White has since toned down his billing, talking about a group of people promoting and pointing to his own Instagram posts as proof he’s part of it. Hearn called that position weak, in language that needed asterisks.
“I don’t really care, I won our battle,” Hearn said. As he tells it, the real fight was keeping the event out of America. “Don’t take this fight away from British fight fans. And we won.”
He also said the production squabble isn’t eating up his week. “I’m focused on the fight. Of course we’ll stand our ground contractually, but that’s it.”
So the plan holds. Whisper builds the show, Netflix carries it and Cardiff hosts it, unless TKO comes to Hearn with terms he likes.
My take, and I’ll say the uncomfortable part first. A UFC crew running a boxing broadcast would probably make for better TV, because boxing shows have a habit of dragging on long after everyone in the arena has checked their phone twice. But White went after the lead promoter role on a fight whose contract shut TKO out, lost the venue argument to Cardiff, and is now angling for the production truck. Hearn has Sela’s letter. If White wants in, it starts with a phone call where Eddie gets to talk first.
