Eddie Hearn is ready to welcome Dana White to the boxing world.
This Saturday marks White’s official foray into boxing as the UFC CEO serves as a co-promoter for the highly anticipated superfight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford. The bout kicks off White’s TKO Boxing project, and the 56-year-old executive has been aggressive when talking about wanting to reshape the industry.
Hearn admires White’s enthusiasm and ambitions, but the Matchroom Boxing chairman is also laying down the gauntlet if White thinks he’s going to come in right away and be boxing’s top man.
“He wants to be the CEO of boxing?” Hearn said on The Stomping Ground. “Because they’re trying to get the Muhammad Ali act changed. We’ve seen that. … Listen, what I will tell you is you’re not going to see me slagging off Dana White. Not because I don’t want to upset him, because I respect him and I have a good relationship with him. The one thing that I would really like at this point in my career is to go head to head with him and to take him on. I want to compete against Dana White. I want to prove that I’m much better than him as a boxing promoter, so I’m excited for him to come into the space. That doesn’t mean we’re going to fall out, by the way, competition is fantastic, but you’re not going to come into boxing and steamroll the game. It’s not going to happen.
“But we can get on, we can work together, but ultimately it depends how they’re going to maneuver. Everybody is a competitor to us in the sport, but a lot of those competitors are friends and a lot of those competitors we work with for the benefit of our business, our fighters, and the sport, and that hopefully will be the same with Dana, but let’s see how it plays out.”
White, along with Saudi Arabian promoter Turki Alalshikh, has been a driving force behind the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, a bill that would drastically alter the conditions for professional fighters that were previously served by the original Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which was enacted in 2000. Critics of the Revival Act accuse the bill of being motivated by greed, with fighters becoming contractually obligated to compete for only one promotion, thus severely limiting their maximum salary and career options.
On Monday, the new bill was widely lambasted by callers during the public portion of a meeting of the California State Athletic Commission, prompting the approval of the bill to be postponed with the commission planning to organize a subcommittee to look further into the proposal.
White actually got into a heated discussion at Thursday’s press conference to promote Canelo vs. Crawford when asked about the Revival Act by boxing reporter Sean Zittel , with White telling Zittel, “Listen, if you want to be an asshole, let’s do it in private and we can do an interview.”
While White might be reluctant to discuss the finer points of the business with the media, he’s more than happy to trade promotional jabs with Hearn, who he considers a friend.
“My guy Eddie Hearn, whom I love and I respect him, I saw him today, he’s out there talking smack,” White said on The Jim Rome Show. “He’s like, ‘Dana’s wrong, he can’t do this, and what’s he doing that’s different, everybody’s doing the same thing and I look forward to competing against him to show that I’m the best boxing promoter in the world.’ You know I love this stuff.
“I look forward to it, too, Eddie. I can’t wait.”
As for any other bigwigs in the boxing sphere who may want to keep him out, White had a less cordial message for them.
“All you boxing guys out there that want to talk crap and talk all your smack: Three of the biggest fights in boxing history, [Manny] Pacquiao-[Floyd] Mayweather, [Conor] McGregor-Mayweather, and now Crawford-Canelo, I’ve been a part of two of the biggest three fights ever in the history of boxing,” White said. “Suck on that one, boys.”