Eddie Hearn is ready to welcome Dana White to the boxing world.<\/p>\n
This Saturday marks White\u2019s 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\u2019s TKO Boxing project, and the 56-year-old executive has been aggressive when talking about wanting to reshape the industry.<\/p>\n
Hearn admires White\u2019s enthusiasm and ambitions, but the Matchroom Boxing chairman is also laying down the gauntlet if White thinks he\u2019s going to come in right away and be boxing\u2019s top man.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to be the CEO of boxing?\u201d Hearn said on The Stomping Ground<\/a>. \u201cBecause they\u2019re trying to get the Muhammad Ali act changed. We\u2019ve seen that. \u2026 Listen, what I will tell you is you\u2019re not going to see me slagging off Dana White. Not because I don\u2019t 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\u2019m much better than him as a boxing promoter, so I\u2019m excited for him to come into the space. That doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to fall out, by the way, competition is fantastic, but you\u2019re not going to come into boxing and steamroll the game. It\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we can get on, we can work together, but ultimately it depends how they\u2019re 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\u2019s see how it plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> with the commission planning to organize a subcommittee to look further into the proposal.<\/p>\n White actually got into a heated discussion at Thursday\u2019s press conference to promote Canelo vs. Crawford when asked about the Revival Act by boxing reporter Sean Zittel , with White telling Zittel, \u201cListen, if you want to be an asshole, let\u2019s do it in private and we can do an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n While White might be reluctant to discuss the finer points of the business with the media, he\u2019s more than happy to trade promotional jabs with Hearn, who he considers a friend.<\/p>\n \u201cMy guy Eddie Hearn, whom I love and I respect him, I saw him today, he\u2019s out there talking smack,\u201d White said on The Jim Rome Show<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Dana\u2019s wrong, he can\u2019t do this, and what\u2019s he doing that\u2019s different, everybody\u2019s doing the same thing and I look forward to competing against him to show that I\u2019m the best boxing promoter in the world.\u2019 You know I love this stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cI look forward to it, too, Eddie. I can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n As for any other bigwigs in the boxing sphere who may want to keep him out, White had a less cordial message for them.<\/p>\n \u201cAll 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\u2019ve been a part of two of the biggest three fights ever in the history of boxing,\u201d White said. \u201cSuck on that one, boys.\u201d<\/p>\n