speaking with Ariel Helwani<\/a> on Tuesday, Hearn gave his latest update on the drama.<\/p>\n\u201cProbably the biggest problem here is that Netflix and TKO don\u2019t necessarily understand our contract, and the strength of it,\u201d Hearn said. \u201cThey\u2019re just not working together. And whether it\u2019s untoward or whether it\u2019s planned, whatever it is, when that press release went out, obviously shit hit the fan. Because it\u2019s like, you do understand that this would be a breach of the agreement? Netflix were like, \u2018Whoa, it\u2019s not our agreement.\u2019 And then that put the fight in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could have been resolved many, many, many weeks ago, but people\u2019s arrogance, and people\u2019s refusal to acknowledge a contract, and actually just tell the truth, changed the game and the direction of this situation and this fight. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to sit down, but after everything you\u2019ve said, your attitude, and the bigger war that is ensuing in boxing, it\u2019s not going to play out the way you thought it was going to play out,\u201d Hearn added. \u201cAnd I needed to make sure that they know what we\u2019re about. I needed to make sure that I got their attention. \u2026 We weren\u2019t gonna let them run us over. It\u2019s just not in the DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Hearn may be ready to hash things out, White has seemed uninterested in doing so, at least in public, instead continuing to insist that he is involved in the fight already. And in yet another attempted olive branch from Hearn, he says that he\u2019s not even opposed to White and TKO stepping in to produce the show, but it needs to be discussed, not foisted upon them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever Netflix uses,\u201d Hearn said when asked who would handle the event production. \u201cWho was it they used, Whisper, last time? You have the Jake Paul events. There\u2019s a series of major events that have taken place on Netflix before. And by the way, I don\u2019t necessarily care if TKO produces the event, but contractually, it\u2019s a breach.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you can\u2019t just have the arrogance to just presume you can go ahead, and now start going out and saying, \u2018Well, I\u2019m not the promoter, but I\u2019m now the producer.\u2019 You can\u2019t. It\u2019s under the same clause in the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019ll have to deal with that. But I\u2019m not \u2014 it\u2019s really only their attitude that\u2019s making this what it is. Because if you reach out to me \u2014 and people will tell you \u2014 we\u2019ll talk. And maybe we\u2019ll find a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Hearn, much of this battle is an issue of respect, and White\u2019s apparent lack of it, as the two have been battling all year since White moved into the boxing space with Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said before, it might be the case if we allow it,\u201d Hearn said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not against it. I don\u2019t really care who produces the event. It\u2019s not my fight. I\u2019ve got a fighter in the fight. But I also know what we signed, where we stand contractually, and because of what\u2019s happened, how I\u2019m going to react if someone comes up there and tries to go, \u2018Oh yeah, well, we\u2019re doing this, we\u2019re doing that. How do you feel about that?!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like child\u2019s play, but it\u2019s gonna make me be childish as well, because that\u2019s the ego of the war that we\u2019re in. And they would do the same. Of course they would.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mostly though, Hearn believes this entire push from White is simply a way to cover up that Zuffa Boxing has not delivered everything White promised at the outset. Though Zuffa has had a hand in a few major fights this year, most of its events have not garnered serious attention, and Hearn says White is trying to use his connections to Turki Alalshikh \u2014 who is financing Fury-Joshua \u2014 to boost Zuffa\u2019s profile amid a poor start to the promotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurki Alalshikh owns Zuffa Boxing. He\u2019s the biggest shareholder in Zuffa,\u201d Hearn said. \u201cOf course he\u2019s gonna want to see those guys do well. He\u2019s going to want to see an impressive body of work. And the issue is at the moment, it\u2019s a disaster, and this gives them an automatic leg up, to give a perception to the world that, \u2018We are the biggest promoters in the world, because look at what we\u2019re promoting! The biggest fight in boxing!\u2019 \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had nothing to do with this fight. You\u2019re using this fight to pretend that your \u2018body of work\u2019 that you keep talking about is impressive. But when you actually strip it back, as we say in the U.K., fur coat, no knickers. And that\u2019s what Zuffa is. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, with that money, with that contract, with those connections to Turki Alalshikh, let\u2019s be honest, the first 10 months have been absolutely abysmal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There might be light at the end of the tunnel for the ongoing war between Eddie Hearn and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6102,913,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-794344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-latest-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}