Dana White is still involved in the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua fight no matter how much Eddie Hearn might protest.
On Thursday, the UFC CEO responded to questions about why he wasn’t in attendance for the first press conference to announce the highly anticipated heavyweight fight, which was held in London. While White was absent, his business partner and fellow Zuffa Boxing executive Nick Khan was there seated next to Saudi money man Turki Alalshikh.
While the actual promoters for the event — Eddie Hearn for Joshua and Frank Warren for Fury — shared the stage, White revealed that his team is definitely still involved in the fight and in a major way.
I had the Contender Series yesterday, I had to be here [in Utah] today,” White said when asked why he didn’t attend the Fury vs. Joshua press conference. “I fly a lot but that’s a little bit of a rough trip.
“Not only am I promoting the fight, we’re producing the fight. UFC is going to produce the show. I don’t know how that’s a PR disaster. I’m right.”
Of course that news comes after Hearn took a victory lap declaring that he was always correct that White wouldn’t actually be involved in the upcoming fight.
“These guys, Dana, etc just played it all wrong,” Hearn said on Wednesday. “I’m not even going to sit here and slag it off because what’s happened to them over the last seven days has been one of the greatest PR disasters in boxing. I don’t even have to go in on them.”
White clearly disagrees.
“Was I lying? Was I wrong? Am I not the promoter,” White told MMA Fighting on Thursday. “Am I not producing the entire f*cking event? The answer is yes. I think that’s the difference between me and Eddie is Eddie’s trying to win some PR battle. Eddie likes to see himself in interviews. He likes to talk a lot and talking will get you in f*cking trouble.”
The fight is set to air on Netflix on Dec. 11 from Cardiff in the United Kingdom and it appears White is definitely going to be involved if the UFC is producing the show.
The original press release from Netflix had White’s name involved in the promotion and it looks like the streaming giant is going to count on the UFC’s production team to put everything together for the event.
