Ajagba’s right hand settled his business in the ring. White held his own on the outside and ended the night by challenging the boxing belt system.
Eddie Hearn called Zuffa’s decision to pit Jai Opetaia against Brandon Glanton in the Zuffa cruiserweight title a “cringe,” questioning why anyone would dare wander off without the comforting arms of the bullpen committees and their penalty funds. White, surprisingly, did not reach the soft tone.
“I saw Eddie Hearn saying the belt was rotten and all these things,” White said. “I don’t think anyone looks at Eddie Hearn and says ‘oh this guy is a vision’… This guy has been in boxing forever.
“I look at him like many politicians; you didn’t do anything in sports except stay on the track, play all the rules and ride right there… You ended up being part of the problem, that’s what happened.”
“I don’t want to sit here and bash Eddie Hearn or anything, but Eddie Hearn works for his dad. I don’t think he’s ever come in and had any kind of vision, and we have. We’re going to change the whole game.”
“This sport has been around for over 100 years and there are a lot of guys involved in the sport. There is a lot of money in this sport. Eddie Hearn and his father have a lot of money. It’s not like they can’t compete. They can’t compete because they don’t know how to compete. There’s no idea there.”
That was a warm-up.
White expanded to include Oscar De La Hoya and a punishing crowd.
“They don’t stop talking, the WBC and Eddie Hearn and all this sh** that Oscar De La Hoya is talking about,” said White. “We all know [De La Hoya is] fg mental illness. This guy says all this and his place is taken, he sues his fighter to try to stay with him. Have you done a Clapback Thursday lately? I would love to see an episode of Clapback Thursday this Thursday from Oscar De La Hoya. Everyone feels it. It’s already happening. It’s going to be an exciting year.”
The WBC also holds one.
“I said what I would do, I never said anything bad about the WBC or the IBF or any of them, I just said I’m not going to do business, I’m going to do my own thing.
He then stepped in for Mauricio Sulaimán.
“We have three fights and people are asking all these questions and this guy from Sulaimán is amazing,” White said. “He’s amazing. He’s as big a PR guy as f*d up boxing has ever been. He’s amazing.”
“At the end of the day, you have to be the expert on what’s going on,” White said. “As I said, I will be present to the task force this year and you can judge how this thing plays out, everyone knows that this thing has been broken for a long time.
He cursed at it and here is who is holding the pen. Alphabetical garments maintain quality, call fasteners, and seal belts when inspection is clear. Promoters work within that system, recruiting their fighters, securing positions, and paying for the right to go one place at a time.
White doesn’t mind waiting for a call from the committee. He wants a board in his office, measurements on his paper, and a belt with his logo instead of the three letters.
In boxing, the belt has value when a fighter has to earn it the hard way, by using punches, against other heavyweights who cannot fight back. Remove that method and you are left with a beautiful picture and a new picture package.
White has made it clear that he simply writes his own standards and calls his own authority. The next year will show if his heavyweights grind through fights to eliminate punchers, or just trade leather inside a closed shop with a different logo on the belt.
