Eddie Hearn doesn’t think Dana White could pass a pop quiz on the 160-pound division.
The Matchroom promoter went after White’s boxing credentials during an appearance with Ariel Helwani, and Helwani posted the sharpest bits. “Eddie Hearn lays out why he believes Dana White is getting exposed in boxing,” he wrote on X, above the quotes.
Hearn opened with a challenge.
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“You could literally say to him, ‘Dana, name me six middleweights that your guys could fight,’ he wouldn’t even know,” Hearn said.
He called that “a huge weakness” and then went after the source of White’s swagger, arguing that the confidence belongs to the company behind him rather than to anything White knows about boxing.
“You’re hiding behind this huge multi-billion dollar corporation... When you strip it back, like there’s no substance behind it,” Hearn said.
Then came the personal shot. “The brain’s cooked. You can’t think logically, you can’t answer questions without losing your rag.” For the American readers, losing your rag is British for losing your temper, which is a bold thing for one promoter to say about another at a time when both of them are fighting for the same boxers.
Yahoo Sports ran the story under a headline in which Hearn calls Zuffa Boxing’s first 10 months “absolutely abysmal.” The clip Helwani posted doesn’t spell out which shows or results Hearn had in mind, so that part of the verdict sits on his word for now.
To be clear about what this is. It’s one promoter’s opinion of a competitor. Hearn didn’t put any evidence on the table that White can’t name a contender, and the claim that White blows up under questioning is Hearn’s characterization, untested here. The source material includes no response from White and no reactions to the clip.
Hearn has handed every reporter covering White a ready-made question. The next time White sits behind a microphone, somebody should ask him to name six middleweights. If he rattles them off, Hearn eats it. If he snaps at the question, he proves Hearn’s other point for him.
