![\"UFC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/c84877c2-c56f-4f29-ad0d-65504a095b87.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOn Sunday, UFC president White talked up his new boxing venture, saying that competing with pre-existing promotions was like \u201cbeating up babies\u201d. The American, 56, also dismissed Hearn for working \u201cfor his dad\u201d, Barry Hearn, who is the president of Matchroom.<\/p>\n
But the younger Hearn is seemingly unfazed and responded to White on Wednesday. He did so at an event to announce a new deal between Matchroom and the streaming platform DAZN.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just quite surprised by the nature of what he said,\u201d Hearn started, \u201cwhich was ultimately: \u2018Eddie Hearn works for his dad.\u2019 That\u2019s kind of what I\u2019ve had my whole career, when they get really flustered and they\u2019re a bit f***ed, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting him to be so f***ed and flustered so early. When he says I work for my dad, I suppose so, but his dad for many years has been the Fertitta brothers, and now he\u2019s got a new daddy called Turki Alalshikh. Dana White works for Turki Alalshikh. He\u2019s an employee of the company really.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fertitta brothers, Lorenzo and Frank, owned the UFC from 2001 until 2016, while Alalshikh is the Saudi government official responsible for the Gulf nation\u2019s boxing drive in recent years. Alalshikh and White lead Zuffa Boxing together, and it is 60 per cent owned by the Saudi firm Sela and 40 per cent by TKO \u2013 the UFC\u2019s ownership group.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
UFC president Dana White has talked up his new Zuffa Boxing venture but Eddie Hearn is having none of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I was quite surprised,\u201d Hearn continued. \u201cWhen you say about we lacked \u2018vision\u2019, looking at everything we\u2019ve done, I think that\u2019s one of the things you can never accuse us of.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, Dana White\u2019s vision is staging mediocre fights in his garage in front of about 112 people, with fighters like Callum Walsh, and [analyst] Max Kellerman telling you: \u2018This guy, I think, is the next Roy Jones [Jr].\u2019 Or headlining with Charles Martin on a Sunday night, saying: \u2018This is like [Muhammad] Ali vs [Larry] Holmes, this match-up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hearn, 46, was referring to Zuffa Boxing\u2019s events so far taking place in the Meta Apex, a small indoor facility in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re trying to manipulate the boxing fans, who won\u2019t fall for it because they\u2019re not idiots, but maybe the wider world will,\u201d Hearn added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, but right now, they\u2019re miles off the pace. But they\u2019ll get there, and they\u2019ll be a threat. They\u2019ll spend money \u2013 it\u2019s not their money. They\u2019ll sign fighters and they\u2019ll get fighters, but I just don\u2019t buy this new belt stuff and this \u2018vision\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really a vision, it\u2019s just control. Here\u2019s your tracksuit, wear that. This is who you\u2019re fighting, and you\u2019re fighting for our belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hearn was referencing the introduction of a Zuffa cruiserweight title, which will be on the line when Jai Opetaia fights Brandon Glanton in March, with more Zuffa belts expected to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday, UFC president White talked up his new boxing venture, saying that competing with pre-existing promotions was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":["post-306282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}