John Fury Says Dana White Should Have Faced Hearn in London
John Fury said Dana White should have walked into the Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury press conference and told Eddie Hearn he was promoting the fight. The father of the Gypsy King made the complaint after White stayed in the United States for UFC Contender Series instead of appearing with the fighters in London.
Asked what he thought of White not being involved that night, Fury did not treat the absence as a scheduling footnote.
“Dana White showed he’s got balls like motherfcking bees,” he said. “He should have stood the fck, fck you Eddie Hearn, I’m coming, I’m promoting this fcker, me, you, kiss my d*ck pal, I’m here.”
The December 11 showdown at Principality Stadium in Cardiff was announced as a Netflix event tied to Turki Alalshikh’s The Ring and to White. Hearn, who has promoted Joshua throughout his professional career, said Joshua’s contract blocked White, Zuffa Boxing, and TKO from a promotional role, and he said Netflix had not been made aware of that provision. White said a similar restriction had been in Fury’s deal and was removed because Fury wanted him involved.
White confirmed before the London press conference that Contender Series on Tuesday would keep him from making Wednesday’s event. Hearn called the no-show one of the greatest PR disasters in boxing and said the reason White was not there was that he was not permitted. White later rejected that framing, saying he was promoting the fight and that the UFC would produce the show, and he asked how that amounted to a disaster.
Fury heard the staying-home explanation and dismissed it. “But what does he do? I’m staying at home,” he said. “Dana White should have been there, the sausage. That’s why the fcking press is fcking boring and that kind of thing.”
He tied the flat room to the missing promoter. “There’s no spark no more, is there?” Fury said. “He’s been up Tyson’s arse fifty mile in America, he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do that.”
The complaint was aimed at the gap between the American buildup and the London dais. White had spent weeks saying he would be involved, including while he was in London the previous weekend for Johnny Fisher’s Zuffa Boxing debut, and Netflix’s announcement carried his name. Hearn spent the same stretch saying the contract said otherwise and that White would not be at the press conference.
Fury then questioned how White handles that kind of pressure. “And you know what, what it is with Dana White? You know when he’s under pressure, he can’t talk,” he said. “Can’t understand him. And he’s saying from over the pond, I’m involved. Where the f*ck is he involved at?”
His larger point was about leverage. “If you’ve got a product everybody else wants, they’ve gotta do what you say, or be fcking amicable, and come into it properly, as a sensible man, and get the job done,” Fury said. “They’ve had to concede in every way. I wouldn’t have fcking conceded.”
That is John Fury’s reading of the negotiations, not a published term sheet. The fight remains listed for December 11 in Cardiff on Netflix, with Joshua and Fury already having faced off in London without White in the room. Hearn has said the contractual argument is settled in Matchroom’s favor and that the promotion is moving on. White has said the opposite about his role and about producing the show.
The next public test is whether White appears on any of the remaining Joshua-Fury dates, or whether the promotion continues with the promoters who were actually on the London stage. Fury has already said which version he wanted.
