The first sign of a way out of the Fury vs. Joshua standoff came from an unlikely place on Saturday: the Zuffa Boxing broadcast.
Calling Zuffa Boxing 11, Max Kellerman addressed Dana White’s disputed role in the December 11 fight directly. “Dana White’s involvement in the fight, so people know, is purely in assisting Turki Alalshikh, who has been the engine behind just about every big fight in boxing over the last handful of years,” Kellerman said. “He’s assisting Turki in a personal capacity, not as a promoter.”
That is a narrower description than the one in Thursday’s announcement, which said Alalshikh’s The Ring and White “will collaborate to promote” the event, and it is narrower than anything White himself has said. On Friday he told Sky Sports: “I’m sitting here promoting the fight right now. Who’s going to stop me?”
The distinction matters because of what Eddie Hearn says is in the contract. Matchroom’s position all week has been that Joshua’s deal bars Dana White, Zuffa Boxing and TKO from promotional involvement in the bout. A friend assisting the event’s financier personally is not the same thing as a promoter of record, and the language appears built with that gap in mind.
It arrived hours after Tyson Fury accused Joshua and Hearn of trying to pull out, and a day after reports from The Ring, Sports Illustrated and Dan Rafael that the fight was in peril over precisely this issue.
Nobody from Matchroom, Sela, The Ring or Netflix has commented since the announcement. The press conference remains scheduled for Wednesday, September 30 in London.
