{"id":559730,"date":"2026-03-23T21:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/559730\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T21:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:03:09","slug":"dana-white-blasts-eddie-hearns-ufc-influence-during-tom-aspinall-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/559730\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White blasts Eddie Hearn\u2019s UFC influence during Tom Aspinall dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana White has once again slammed Eddie Hearn\u2019s venture into managing MMA fighters after the Matchroom boss signed UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall to his talent agency.<\/p>\n

White<\/a> and Hearn<\/a> became embroiled in a war of words after Conor Benn signed with Zuffa last month, bringing his decade-long association with Matchroom Boxing to an end.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the news, Hearn explained how he was informed through a lawyer\u2019s letter before being denied the opportunity to speak to the British fighter on the phone.<\/p>\n

Benn will make his Zuffa debut against Regis Prograis on 11 April on the undercard of Tyson Fury\u2019s comeback bout against Russia\u2019s Arslanbek Makhmudov, with Hearn set to be in attendance at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.<\/p>\n

Aside from the verbal back and forth between the two most powerful promoters in combat sports, Hearn recently signed Aspinall to his new talent agency.<\/p>\n

The deal is said to be \u201ccommercial and advisory\u201d, while the fighter remains under contract with the UFC<\/a> as he recovers from an eye injury sustained against Ciryl Gane in October.<\/p>\n

And White has responded to the deal by saying that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t get\u201d the reasons behind the move.<\/p>\n

\"DanaDana White has slammed Eddie Hearn (Credit:Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the thought process was [behind the move],\u201d he told the media gathering at UFC London on Saturday (21 March).<\/p>\n

\u201cEddie was coming out saying, \u2018Ah, I look forward to competing with them [Zuffa Boxing].<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s things that they don\u2019t know about boxing that they\u2019re going to learn.\u2019 And then two weeks later, he\u2019s an MMA manager. I don\u2019t get the move.\u201d<\/p>\n

White was then pressed on how he\u2019ll handle negotiating with Hearn when Aspinall<\/a> returns to the octagon, with the Matchroom boss earlier slamming the heavyweight\u2019s current UFC earnings, branding his contract a \u201cf****** disgrace\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve dealt with some f****** beauties over the last 25 years. I can promise you that,\u201d White responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cEddie Hearn will be no different. It doesn\u2019t matter who the managers are. It doesn\u2019t matter at all. We will get deals done with guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever is out there that wants to compete. I love to compete. I haven\u2019t seen anything from anybody yet in the boxing business, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen less than nothing from these guys. And the last press conference I did have after the last boxing match, it\u2019s been pretty disappointing, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expected a lot more. But then when you look at the state of the sport of boxing, I guess it\u2019s not that much of a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UFC returns on 29 March with Israel Adesanya and Joe Pyfer set to headline in Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White has once again slammed Eddie Hearn\u2019s venture into managing MMA fighters after the Matchroom boss signed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,802,958,9915,786,785,85,799,787],"class_list":["post-559730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-dana-white","tag-eddie-hearn","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-tom-aspinall","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}