Bob Arum: ‘I don’t need Eddie Hearn to sell my [Fury – Whyte] fight’

By Michael Collins - 03/09/2022 - Comments

Bob Arum went off today after hearing the news of promoter Eddie Hearn predicting an 11th round knockout win for Dillian Whyte over Tyson Fury on April 23rd.

Arum says Hearn has been interfering with his and Frank Warren’s promotion of the Fury vs. Whyte clash at Wembley Stadium in London, and he wants him to butt out.

In fairness to Hearn, he works with Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), and he’s getting pumped with questions on his fight with Fury on a daily basis from boxing fans.

It’s in Hearn’s best interest for Whyte to win the fight because he can potentially set up a mega-fight between him and Anthony Joshua overseas and make money hand over fist with that clash.

Hearn’s KO prediction for Whyte

“Tyson Fury in my opinion doesn’t carry the power to take Dillian Whyte out. I believe actually when they trade up left hooks Tyson Fury will go to sleep, and he will go to sleep in round 11,” said Hearn to DAZN.

“What the f*** is Eddie Hearn interfering with a fight that Frank Warren and I are promoting?” said Bob Arum to Fighthype in reacting to being told that Hearn is predicting an 11th round knockout for Whyte over Fury.

Whyte hasn’t fought in 12 months since his win over Alexandr Povetkin in March 2021, and it’s impossible to know how he’ll perform after that long of a layoff.

In Whyte’s three fights before that, he’d struggled against Povetkin in getting stopped, and got all he could handle against 39-year-old Mariusz Wach and Dereck Chisora.

If Whyte does knockout Fury, it would be a massive shock to the world because the Gypsy King is viewed as the #1 heavyweight in the world.

Bob Arum: 'I don't need Eddie Hearn to sell my [Fury - Whyte] fight'

“Eddie Hearn is all over the place, he never stops talking, he never gets anything really accomplished unless DAZN gives him a s*** load of money to outbid everybody else.

“Why is Eddie Hearn talking about a Tyson Fury vs. Dillian Whyte fight? I don’t need Eddie Hearn to sell my fight. We started ticket sales last week and within three hours, we sold 85,000 seats. Eddie Hearn never did anything like it.

“Now, we’re asking the municipality to add another 10-15,0000 so we can have a crowd of 100,000. Let Eddie Hearn worry about Joshua. Let him worry about the other cockamamie guys that he has in his stable.

“I don’t need him to give me any help promoting my fights. I have no idea,” Arum said when asked how dangerous Dillian Whyte is in comparison to Fury’s last opponent Deontay Wilder.

“I know Whyte has a good punch, he’s a tough guy, and it’s a tough fight. But frankly, as I eventuate the situation, I don’t see any heavyweight that can beat Tyson Fury.

“Now, Whyte can hit him on the chin and knock him out, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s [Fury] fighting in the UK, we’re sending Jared Anderson over to spar with him and he has a training camp that’s removed from his house.

“It’s on the coast, so he’s going to be fine. There’s no magic training inside the United States unless you’re going to fight in the United States

“I think if Fury wins that fight and gets to fight either Joshua or Usyk. Unfortunately, Usyk, I check every day because he’s a friend of mine, he’s in danger. He lives very close by Kyiv and he’s in the defense force, as is Lomachenko.

“I think the big fight next year is Tyson Fury against this guy who is the heavyweight champion of the UFC. That would be a tremendous, tremendous fight,” said Arum in talking about Fury fighting Francis Ngannou.

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