White joins Fury to cast doubts on Joshua fight

UFC president Dana White has joined Tyson Fury in casting doubt over whether the proposed all-British heavyweight showdown with Anthony Joshua will go ahead, admitting he does not know if the bout will take place as planned amid an escalating row with Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

Fury and Joshua are scheduled to meet at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on December 11, but the long-awaited contest has been thrown into doubt over its promotion.

White, who runs Zuffa Boxing alongside Saudi boxing powerbroker Turki Alalshikh, has been positioned as the main promoter of the event, while Hearn insists Joshua’s agreement prevents him from being involved.

“I don’t know. The guy who is supposed to be helping the fight has been hurting the fight the entire time. He hasn’t done the fight any favours,” White said, according to the Daily Mail, before delivering a scathing personal verdict on Hearn.

Asked whether he would consider stepping aside to ensure the fight goes ahead, White said the decision was not his to make.

“That’s not up to me,” he said.

He described the whole affair as a shambles and said much more would be known in the next three or four days.

Fury has also publicly criticised Hearn and Joshua, insisting he has agreed to everything required to make the contest happen.

“There’s nothing that I haven’t agreed to. Nothing. I’ll even tie concrete blocks to my boots to make this fight happen,” Fury said, per FurociTV and Sherdog.

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He credited Alalshikh and Netflix with financing the event and argued that Matchroom Boxing is not in a position to dictate its promotional arrangements.

The bout was announced last Thursday, ending years of failed negotiations, as a collaboration between Alalshikh’s The Ring and White, and will be broadcast on Netflix. That arrangement has become the sticking point.

Hearn has been at odds with White for months and says the UFC boss’s involvement breaches their contract.

“Dana White cannot be involved with this fight promotion. Netflix clearly did not get the memo. No one talks to each other,” Hearn told IFL TV.

Fury’s promoter, Frank Warren, said White had been instrumental in securing the Netflix deal, while Fury accused Hearn and Joshua of trying to pull out of the fight.

“It is mainly to do with Eddie Hearn’s ego. He is making up a million different things and threatening that we are not going to fight,” Fury posted on Instagram.

The latest dispute comes just days before both fighters are expected to appear at a press conference in London on September 30, with fewer than 11 weeks left before the scheduled fight. Fury has suggested another opponent could be found if Joshua withdraws.

The fight has survived several false starts since 2020, when the two camps first agreed a two-fight deal. Contracts for an undisputed contest were signed in 2021, only for Deontay Wilder’s arbitration case to force Fury into a third fight with the American, and a 2022 attempt, in which Joshua accepted a 60-40 financial split, also collapsed before the pair finally signed for Cardiff earlier this year.