Eddie Hearn has found the perfect defense for freezing Dana White out of Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury, and it’s Frank Warren. Pointing at your oldest promotional rival and announcing that he’d be even harsher than you is a move only a boxing promoter could pull off with a straight face. Hearn pulled it off, and it’s the smartest thing anyone has said in this whole Zuffa Boxing soap opera.
Warren had taken shots at Hearn over Ben Whittaker and over how he’s handling White. Hearn’s answer, which Ariel Helwani posted on X on Tuesday, opened politely enough: “I don’t agree with Frank on his assessment of Ben Whittaker, but more importantly, his assessment of the situation with Dana White.”
Then came the knife. “I know how he feels about contracts and I know how he feels about deals and how they’re honored... Trust me when I say it... He would be saying, ‘Not on my Nelly, no way will you be involved in this fight.’”
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That is Hearn telling the public that his biggest critic secretly agrees with him. You can’t argue with a guy who has already drafted your rebuttal for you. It’s petty and it’s brilliant, and I’d frame it.
The paperwork is the punch
Why is Hearn so comfortable? Because the contract is doing his fighting. According to MMA Mania, clauses in Joshua’s signed deal with Saudi entertainment company SELA state the fight must happen in the U.K. and that TKO may not be involved. White and TKO had been working toward Madison Square Garden. The fight got announced for Principality Stadium in Cardiff instead. MMA Mania scored it Eddie 1, Dana 0, and I’m not filing a protest.
White has insisted from the start that his involvement is locked in. When Hearn said Turki Alalshikh had confirmed White would not be producing the show, White fired back in a clip shared by ACD MMA: “I’m producing it, I’m promoting it, I’ll see you in Wales.”
Now comes round two. Central Oregon Daily ran a headline describing an animated White responding to Hearn again with this line: “Sounds like he’s got an incredible lawsuit.” The headline doesn’t spell out what lawsuit he means, and I’m not going to invent the details. What I will say is that sarcasm about the other guy’s legal standing is what you reach for when the signed documents aren’t in your folder. White is one of the great trash talkers in combat sports promotion, but a quip can’t rewrite a SELA clause.
Hearn is charging admission at the door
The funniest part is that Hearn doesn’t actually want White gone. He told reporters after Matchroom’s Whittaker event on Saturday that he’ll be in Los Angeles this coming week for a meeting on the fight, and that White is supposed to be there. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be with him, yeah,” Hearn said.
He also laid out exactly where the power sits: “I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but they cannot be involved in the fight unless myself and Anthony allow them to be. And they seem to be very desperate to be involved in the fight. And Turki wants them to be involved in the fight and so do Netflix.”
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Then he admitted the feud is good business. “It’s great for the promotion, so I’m not against it,” he said, before asking what’s in it for Joshua and for Matchroom. His one condition for letting White near a press conference is that he gets to go back and forth with him, because he wants to quiz White on his boxing knowledge about his clients and their potential opponents.
That’s a promoter who knows he’s the heel in America and the hero at home, and he’s enjoying both jobs. MMA Mania wondered whether all this noise steals ink from Joshua and Fury. I’d argue the opposite. Two heavyweights everyone already knows don’t need a new storyline, while a promoter flinging British insults at White (per MMA Mania) and daring him to show up in Wales gives casual fans a reason to tune in to the presser. That only falls apart if the face-off is fake, and nothing about these two feels fake.
About Whittaker
On the Whittaker half of Warren’s criticism, Hearn is right, and he’s right for the same reason I love a good villain. Helwani also posted Hearn explaining that Whittaker’s swagger means every off night gets magnified: “When you are a star like Ben is, and you have that kind of persona, cockiness and brashness, when things don’t go your way everyone is going to jump on you tenfold.”
Hearn added, “I’m completely convinced Ben is going to go on and win world championships, but you’ve got to learn and come back better.” He closed with the most honest line of the week: “People want to see him fail.” Correct. That’s the tax on being entertaining, and Whittaker should keep paying it, because the guys people want to see lose are the guys people pay to watch.
So the scoreboard heading into Los Angeles reads like this. Hearn holds the contract, has Turki’s word on production, and has Warren’s imaginary endorsement in his back pocket. White holds a microphone and a lawsuit joke. If White ends up anywhere near Cardiff, it’ll be because Hearn and Joshua signed off on it in that L.A. meeting this week.
