{"id":9100,"date":"2026-02-20T22:44:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9100"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:44:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:44:59","slug":"conor-benn-leaves-eddie-hearns-matchroom-to-join-dana-whites-zuffa-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9100","title":{"rendered":"Conor Benn leaves Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom to join Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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Absolutely nobody in boxing had this on their bingo card. There were no whispers, rumours or cryptic social media hints.<\/p>\n

Usually when a fighter jumps ship, the outgoing promoter gets ahead of it with a statement or some kind of warning shot – not this time.<\/p>\n

White has made no secret of his desire to disrupt boxing’s power structure, and securing Benn – a fighter with genuine mainstream appeal, albeit still with doubters – is a statement signing.<\/p>\n

Hearn had stood firmly behind Benn throughout the doping saga and was actively manoeuvring him towards a world-title shot. Benn is the mandatory challenger for the winner of Mario Barrios v Ryan Garcia, and has made no secret of his ambition to become a world champion.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for those plans? Zuffa recently signed reigning cruiserweight world champion Jai Opetaia, yet the long-term vision is one belt, a Zuffa title, and no reliance on the traditional sanctioning bodies. <\/p>\n

If that is the direction, what does Benn do now? Will he target becoming the first Zuffa welterweight champion?<\/p>\n

Over the past week, White dismissed Hearn’s credentials and quipped he works for his father Barry – prompting the younger Hearn to fire back that White’s boss is Alalshikh.<\/p>\n

From a pure PR standpoint, this is a major win for White. This brewing promotional rivalry just got a whole lot louder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Absolutely nobody in boxing had this on their bingo card. There were no whispers, rumours or cryptic social media hints. Usually when a fighter jumps ship, the outgoing promoter gets ahead of it with a statement or some kind of warning shot – not this time. White has made no secret of his desire to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}