Eddie Hearn wants to book a Dillian Whyte and Francis Ngannou crossover fight
Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is planning to reach out to UFC president Dana White about possible cross-discipline fight between boxer Dillian Whyte and UFC star Francis Ngannou.
ESPN shared a clip of Hearn discussing the possibility on an Instagram live chat.
“The only thing is, do we go in the cage, or do we go in the ring?” Hearn said.
“Apparently Ngannou wants it in the ring though.
“I thought maybe me, and Dana could put this night together where you’ve got a ring which also transforms into a cage between match ups. So, you’ve got crossover fights, but you’ve got an MMA fighter against a boxer in a ring. Then you’ve got a boxer fighting an MMA fighter in a cage.”
Hearn would then tell Sky Sports that he has been taking a Whyte and Ngannou fight serious due to the interest from fans. He also gave the end of 2020 as timeline for the fight.
“The aim for Dillian Whyte is to become a world boxing champion, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Dillian Whyte against Ngannou towards the end of this year.” Hearn said. “Obviously we know Povetkin is next, but whether it’s October, November, December,”
“It’s really got a lot of momentum and a lot of promise. I think there’s a really good chance it could happen.”
Whyte, a British heavyweight, has a professional record of 27-1. His lone loss came against current WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. He was scheduled to fight Alexander Poventkin in July, but that fight as been affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Ngannou is one of the scariest punchers of all time in UFC history. He is currently come off a knockout win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, which Ngannou needed only 20 seconds to get the win. He has won his last four fights by TKO/KO, three of which were stopped in less than a minute.
The last time the UFC did a crossover with boxing was in 2017 when boxing legend Floyd Mayweather defeated UFC superstar Conor McGregor by a tenth-round TKO.
