Eddie Hearn believed Dana White could have handled his fracas with a reporter at last week’s Canelo vs Crawford press conference a little bit differently.
The UFC boss made his debut as a boxing promoter last week, delivering a record-breaking event on Netflix from the Allegiant Stadium as Terence Crawford dethroned Canelo Alvarez. One of the most noteworthy moments of the week came when he was confronted at a press conference.
Journalist Sean Zittel wanted White to answer to his promotion’s plans to change the Muhammad Ali Act, as well as if he would stay in boxing without those changes being made. The MMA supremo answered back by insisting that they do an interview another time, before calling Zittel an ‘a–hole’.
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Eddie Hearn tells Dana White how he would have handled press conference clash
As a veteran boxing promoter in his own right, Eddie Hearn is more than used to being asked difficult questions by members of the media. However, he approaches press conferences differently, and tends to spend hours after each event giving one-to-one interviews to outlets of all sizes.
“After the press conference I will do every outlet individually for basically three hours,” Hearn told Ariel Helwani. “I don’t really take questions from the floor, I allow them to ask the question to my face away from the press conference.
“This enables them to ask a broader range of questions. So I have to be honest that the pressing of that question, while it was a very good and valid question, is not necessarily relevant to the Crawford-Canelo fight.
“The issue is Dana doesn’t do all those interviews, he doesn’t give the media access like that so when they get the open floor they want their opportunity to ask the questions that people want to hear.
“If I’m Sean Zittel, I’m now firing in the email to go ‘you said in front of the world to come and talk to you and question you and do an interview with you, when would you like that to take place?'”
Dana White slammed reporter during intense press conference moment
On Thursday Sean Zittel, best known for his work with FightHype, pressed Dana White on TKO Boxing’s involvement in attempts to change the Muhammad Ali Act for fighters. The federal law has been standing for over 25 years, and seeks to, among other points, protect the rights and welfare of boxers.
However, White believed that the line of questioning was better suited to an interview, insisting that Zittel book one in instead of attempting to gain notoriety.
After three efforts to get an answer from White, who continued to insist on doing an interview at a future date, things got dicey between the pair. The UFC boss told Zittel “If you want to be an a–hole let’s do it in private and we can do an interview. If you want to showboat, I get it.”