{"id":690099,"date":"2026-01-12T02:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690099\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T02:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:01:10","slug":"dana-white-eddie-hearn-suddenly-confrontational-as-zuffa-boxing-launches-hes-talking-like-a-politician-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690099\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White: Eddie Hearn suddenly \u2018confrontational\u2019 as Zuffa Boxing launches: \u2018He\u2019s talking like a politician now\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana White knew he was going to ruffle some feathers with the launch of Zuffa Boxing but even the people he got along with the most in the sport have suddenly taken aim at him.<\/p>\n

With the new promotion set to officially launch on Jan. 23 with Callum Walsh taking on Carlos Ocampo in the main event set to air on Paramount+, White is doing his best to reinvent a sport he says feels like a \u201cfire sale\u201d every time there\u2019s a major card. Zuffa Boxing is attempting to shake things up by bringing UFC-style promotion to boxing through a new law winding its way through Congress after already inking a long-term broadcast deal with Paramount.<\/p>\n

Of course, White has never held his tongue when it comes to his opinions on certain promoters \u2014 Top Rank\u2019s Bob Arum and Golden Boy Promotions\u2019 Oscar De La Hoya come to mind \u2014 but he always maintained a positive relationship with Matchroom Boxing\u2019s Eddie Hearn. That has suddenly changed in the wake of Zuffa Boxing preparing to launch in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some good guys in the sport of boxing,\u201d White told Stephen A. Smith on his podcast<\/a>. \u201cI was actually surprised Eddie Hearn, I\u2019ve been cool with him for a long time, at his take on me getting into boxing and his reaction to it. Very negative. Very confrontational, which I found weird, because it\u2019s not his style.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent months, Hearn has bashed plans to upend the sport with the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, which would allow Zuffa Boxing to run a promotion similar to the UFC with in-house championship titles, rankings and fighters being signed to long-term, exclusive deals. He also mocked the compensation he claimed Zuffa is paying fighters after reportedly seeing some contract offers made to fighters.<\/p>\n

In response, White believes that Hearn is just reacting to the potential threat that Zuffa Boxing poses to his business model without even holding a single show yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, 100 percent [it\u2019s because we\u2019re coming to boxing],\u201d White said. \u201cHe\u2019s talking like a politician now. He\u2019s like \u2018I look forward to [it], we\u2019re going to beat them, we\u2019re going to do this and we\u2019re going to do that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve been here for 25 years. What are you talking about? It\u2019s like the politician who\u2019s running for re-election. He\u2019s going to tell you all the things he\u2019s going to change and do. Well, why didn\u2019t you do that in your last term? That\u2019s Eddie Hearn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White knew he was going to ruffle some feathers with the launch of Zuffa Boxing but even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,1501,79,5706,12137,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-690099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-latest-news","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-ufc","13":"tag-ufc-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}