Eddie Hearn Says TKO Offered Joshua $10 Million for the Fury Fight
Eddie Hearn says TKO put a written number in front of Anthony Joshua to buy a place on a fight the company does not promote. On The Ariel Helwani Show, he put that number in the $10 million range and said Joshua turned it down.
The offer, in Hearn’s account, was not a conversation he was in. He said someone came around the back of the deal and approached a member of Joshua’s team with a proposal written on behalf of TKO. Joshua, he said, never spoke to them.
“They need to be there front and center of AJ Fury in a fight they have nothing to do with and say, look, told you, Zuffa boxing, like we are the guys, look, biggest fight in the world,” Hearn said. “So there’s a huge value to that. And that’s why they offered AJ a load of money to let them do it.”
Helwani asked how much. Hearn said a lot of money. Asked if it was somewhere in the $10 million range, he answered yes. Asked if Joshua said no, he answered again.
“Correct,” Hearn said. “It also involved the fight in America.”
Helwani filled in Madison Square Garden. Hearn added the other condition. Joshua would have had to appear at WWE events. The money was for the promotional credit, the American date, and the crossover appearances, not for a purse bump on a fight already signed.
“Oh, he never spoke to them. This was someone who came round the back and approached a member of AJ’s team,” Hearn said. “With a very clear written proposal on behalf of TKO.”
That document has not been made public. TKO, Zuffa Boxing, and Dana White have not answered the claim. Hearn spent the rest of the answer on the denial he expects.
“Now they will say, oh, well, this guy, this gentleman doesn’t work for us, so maybe he didn’t. Maybe this guy was just chancing his arm,” Hearn said. “I know the guy. Impossible.”
He framed the approach as a shareholder problem, not a boxing one. Zuffa Boxing launched this year under TKO, the parent of the UFC and WWE. Hearn said the last Zuffa show in the United States was in July, and that nothing is on the American calendar for October, November, or December.
“You have to, as a business that has a responsibility to give the perception and also give the numbers and tell shareholders that actually this new venture has been a success,” Hearn said. “Right now, like, no one’s really analyzing.”
Tyson Fury and Joshua are booked for Friday, December 11, at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, streaming on Netflix.
The British Boxing Board of Control has the event down to Queensberry Promotions, Matchroom Boxing, and Sela. Zuffa is not on that list. The original Netflix release still described the show as a collaboration with White.
That gap is the whole argument. Joshua’s deal, Hearn has said, bars White, Zuffa Boxing, and TKO from a promotional role and required the fight in the United Kingdom.
Fury’s deal did not carry the same bar, which is why a Madison Square Garden date stayed alive into September. Joshua’s side held the UK clause. The $10 million, in this telling, was the price of moving it.
White has not treated the credit as optional. He has said he is producing the fight, promoting the fight, and flying from Cardiff to Las Vegas the next day for UFC 335.
Hearn’s answer on the same interview was that production sits under the same clause. He does not care if TKO produces the show. He says the contract still calls it a breach.
“This is the desperation and value they place on pretending to be involved in this event,” Hearn said.
The two sides were supposed to be in a room this week in Los Angeles, with Sela chief executive Dr. Rakan Alharthy also named. Hearn has called those talks a place to cut a deal. White, asked about a meeting, said one had already happened and asked what was left to discuss.
December 11 has not moved. Joshua is still the man whose contract keeps Zuffa off the promoter line, and Hearn is still the one describing a written offer to change that. Until TKO puts the proposal on the record, or Joshua does, the $10 million figure belongs to the promoter who says he watched it get rejected.
