Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport is wondering if he's going to be forced to roll up his sleeves and go toe to toe with Lou DiBella when the two promotional rivals go face to face in the near future.
The two promoters recently had a war of words on social media, over Hearn's lucrative offer to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) - to make a world title defense in the UK against Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs).
Whyte has been out of the ring since December 2016, after winning a very close Fight of The Year battle with domestic rival Dereck Chisora. Wilder was in action back in February, when he knocked out late replacement Gerald Washington.
Hearn, who promotes Whyte, had made comments that Wilder was dragging his feet and reluctant to take the fight.
DiBella responded on social media, denying Hearn's claim of making an offer. He also said that there had no discussions taking place.
But Hearn reacted back, telling DiBella that he "wasn't involved" in the negotiations.
DiBella works closely with Wilder's manager/adviser Al Haymon. While DiBella has promoted several of Wilder's recent fights, there is no promotional agreement between them.
Hearn explained that DiBella continued to go after him in a private email conversation, and the British promoter wonders if DiBella will erupt with some fisticuffs when they come together in New York.
“There’s been a lot of stuff with Dibella and stuff like that. Mad. Lou snaps at the silliest things. I think he gets a lot stick and he felt I was tarring him with that same brush. He just accused me of making Twitter offers when I hadn’t. I’d made three firm offers, and I just said you haven’t been involved with those and he went mad. Mad. He’s still going mad at me," Hearn told Boxing News.
I spoke to him last night, on email about something else. He’s still got the raving hump. He’s still going on about it. Maybe because I haven’t been stained by the game yet. I will be one day. I think it’s funny and I think it’s great for building fights and I’m tweeting him, thinking this is great, and he’s tweeting thinking I’m insulted with this person.
"For me it’s just way of building fights, getting people excited. It’s just another another dynamic. That’s what I’m thinking. Whereas they’re thinking it’s personal and I’m taking a liberty. So he might take a swing for me the next time I’m in New York.”