Fury told reporter Mike Coppinger that the breakthrough on his US visa was engineered inside the White House by two of the most powerful figures in American sport and politics.
“Listen, it all got done through Dana on Donald Trump’s table. And Donald Trump just went bang: ‘Tyson’s a great guy. Come on in,’” Fury said, as quoted by Boxing News 24.
The claim shifts the story around his US return. Fury had previously credited Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh with the fix, but now points to the UFC president as the man who closed the loop with the president himself.
The ban that locked him out
Fury had been unable to enter the United States since 2022, after boxing advisor Daniel Kinahan was sanctioned by the US Treasury as the alleged leader of an Irish organised crime group. His half-brother Tommy was also turned back at the border.
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The restriction was lifted in June 2026, when Fury made his first US appearance in more than four years, appearing alongside White and Trump at the UFC event at the White House.
White missing from the London launch
Fury’s version arrives against a backdrop of visible tension around the fight. White was absent from the launch press conference in London on Wednesday, blaming a UFC Contender Series commitment in Las Vegas.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, was not buying it.
“The reality is his event last night, he could have got on his jet and come here,” Hearn told The Stomping Ground.
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Hearn called the whole affair “one of the greatest PR disasters in boxing” and said White had been talking up his role without delivering.
“You told the world you signed the venue contract. None of that materialized,” Hearn said.
The split-contract problem
The friction over White has a paper trail. Joshua’s deal with Hearn’s Matchroom bars White and his Zuffa Boxing operation from promoting the bout. Fury took the opposite route and had the same clause stripped out of his own contract.
“It was in my contract, but I took it out. F*** ’em. I want him involved,” Fury said. “Two baldies together. I like Dana. Good business man and good guy.”
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Netflix, which has the fight as a global free-to-view event, is understood to have wanted White’s involvement to lift US viewing figures. White has publicly described the fight as “a done deal” and dismissed the Hearn stand-off as “a total ego thing.”
Fury’s account of a direct Trump intervention has not been publicly addressed by White or by the White House.
Joshua meets Fury over 12 rounds under the retractable roof of the Principality Stadium on Friday, December 11, with the main event scheduled for around 1am local time.
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