After watching Dana White and Zuffa Boxing take verbal blows from promoter Eddie Hearn, Max Kellerman decided to enter the ring and fight back.
Kellerman joined the broadcast team for Zuffa Boxing last year, a joint boxing promotion venture launched by TKO, the parent company of UFC and WWE. And as a longtime boxing promoter, Hearn has attempted to downplay the emergence of White’s Zuffa Boxing. But after losing fighter Conor Benn to Zuffa, Kellerman believes it’s time for Hearn, Oscar De La Hoya, and other leading boxing promoters to recognize the startup’s impact.
“They have been going at Zuffa and mentioning me by name,” Kellerman said of Hearn and De La Hoya on his Game Over podcast with co-host Rich Paul. “They have been going after Zuffa and talking wild about me.
Kellerman noted Hearn was recently “talking wild,” but then appeared to be “choking back tears” after losing Benn to Zuffa.
“You can’t talk wild on Monday and be crying on Tuesday,” Kellerman continued. “You can’t be talking about how on Monday, ‘these guys suck, and they’re nothing, and I’m so much better,’ and on Tuesday, crying about a loss! Throughout broadcast history or even media history, whenever there has been an expansion, boxing has expanded with it.”
Kellerman cited boxing’s benefit from the printing press, radio, TV, and cable, and now he believes it’s happening again with streaming. Boxing has historically been a good test case for new broadcast ventures because it delivers a reliable audience while being cheaper to produce than other sports. And while Kellerman believes Zuffa Boxing will be better for the fans and fighters in terms of visibility and expansion, promoters such as Hearn and De La Hoya are trying to maintain the status quo.
“But the status quo is not good for boxing or boxing fans,” Kellerman continued, noting that boxing was completely off broadcast television in the United States before Zuffa.
“Here’s the new game,” Kellerman said of Zuffa Boxing. “And guys like Eddie Hearn or Oscar De La Hoya who are flailing and insulting Dana White and Nick Khan, – I don’t know why you’d pick those two guys to have a fight with. And me. Me either, you really don’t want it. – What they haven’t understood is, the game is already over. They just don’t know it. Game over. And my best advice to them would be, don’t talk wild on a Monday and literally cry on a Tuesday when you take a loss. What you should be doing is literally minding your business.”
Hearn would probably argue that Benn literally was his business. Zuffa Boxing might see this as an opportunity to expand the sport, but it’s not without controversy. As Kellerman portrays Zuffa as an innovative avenue to grow boxing, he’s glossing over the fact that it’s financed by Saudi royal Turki Alalshikh and Sela Sport, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. And since joining Zuffa, Kellerman has been accused of being a shill for the Saudi-backed company after previously being known for his honest and unbiased commentary on the sport.
Despite the controversy surrounding Zuffa, the boxing promotion venture appears hellbent on proving this is the new game. And signing Benn was undoubtedly a big win for their efforts, and a devastating blow for the promoter game.
