Zuffa Boxing\u2019s Dana White and Matchroom Boxing\u2019s Eddie Hearn had been playing nice in the past, trading public praise and pleasantries with one another. <\/p>\n
Now the gloves are off and a rivalry is roaring as the pair of promoters begin to take aim at each other.<\/p>\n
Hearn recently ripped White, who\u2019s looking to make changes to the Muhammad Ali Act<\/a> and introduce his own belts to boxing. Hearn has been vocal in recent weeks about standing toe-to-toe and competing with White in the marketplace. <\/p>\n White finally had enough of Hearn\u2019s remarks and went in on the British promoter. <\/p>\n “Eddie Hearn is all of a sudden acting like a [expletive] lunatic. He sounds like he’s reading a WWE script every time he talks on a show. It’s a fascinating thing,\u201d White said in an interview on the “3 Knockdown Rule” hosted by Mario Lopez and Steve Kim.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just sounds [expletive] ridiculous. He’s executing badly. I’ve known Eddie for a while, this isn’t Eddie’s personality. The other thing is when you hear someone like Eddie talk, it reminds me of a career politician. He’s running for election now and saying ‘we’re going to do this and that.’ You’re not going to do jack [expletive]. Where were you the last [expletive] 20 years? You didn’t do [expletive]. And now, I’m getting in and I’m going to do these fights, and you’re going to do this and that. Those guys never thought big. It’s not the way they think and run their business. All of a sudden, now, Eddie is going to change boxing, and fix this and do that? And he’s going to compete with me and all of this [expletive]? I don’t even think about these guys and what they’re doing, and how they are doing it. I get in, keep my head down, grind, and do my thing, and we see where we end up in five years.\u201d <\/p>\n On Friday, Hearn caught wind of White\u2019s comments and offered a counterattack. <\/p>\n \u201cI’ve never read from a script my entire life, and no one tells me what to say,\u201d Hearn told reporters. \u201cI’m a little bit concerned from what I saw from Dana, because I like Dana, and I don’t want it to go like this for him. I saw the interview, and I said ‘it’s over before it even started.’ I mean, how loud do you want to talk? … All of a sudden, I saw this anger and this tension. Whoa. On one hand, we’re not a threat, and the other you lost your [expletive] already and we haven’t even started yet. This is bread and butter for me. The difference between me and Dana is that I have been in those battles for 15 years with Frank Warren, Bob Arum, and Oscar De La Hoya. It’s literally like riding a bike for me. I saw the warning signs in the interview and I thought, ‘Oh my God. This could be a little bit easier than I thought.’ Don’t get me wrong. This is going to be a fun fight.\u201d<\/p>\n Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on X<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>: @ManoukAkopyan.