Dana White fires back at Eddie Hearn over request to release UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall

UFC president Dana White responded sharply to Eddie Hearn’s public request for Tom Aspinall to be released from his UFC contract, dismissing it as unrealistic and, at one point, taking a dig at another combat sports star tied to Hearn’s boxing world. White made the comments in England following a Zuffa Boxing event on Saturday, June 6, and said Hearn’s demand sounded “pretty stupid,” adding that if the UFC were to release Aspinall, Hearn would need to “release Bam Rodriguez” in return.

Hearn’s request, as described by BBC Sport earlier this month, was not framed as a negotiation posture but as a plea, arguing that Aspinall is “extremely unhappy” and that the heavyweight champion is not being paid what he is worth. BBC reported that Hearn offered a compensation plan if White allowed the split, saying Aspinall would earn “five or six times” more and at least “three times” his current earnings, while also suggesting he would drop planned legal action related to Conor Benn if Aspinall were released.

White’s response lands in the middle of a broader and increasingly personal public dispute between the two leading figures in combat sports. White has positioned the UFC’s stance around the contractual reality that Aspinall remains under deal with the promotion, while Hearn has leaned into leverage, portraying the current arrangement as harmful to a fighter of Aspinall’s profile. In the same cycle of headlines, other reports have also described Hearn’s stance as tied to how the UFC structures pay and fight opportunities, with Hearn arguing Aspinall should not accept the kind of compensation he sees as too low for a championship-level headliner.

The timing matters, too, because Aspinall’s return has been complicated by health and recovery. BBC wrote that he has been dealing with eye problems since the title fight with Ciryl Gane last October, when the contest ended after repeated eye pokes, and that he had double eye surgery in February, with his timeline to return still uncertain. That uncertainty is now colliding with the UFC’s decision to keep building the heavyweight ladder, even if the undisputed titleholder is not ready to immediately engage.

UFC Freedom 250, scheduled for Sunday, June 14, 2026, is set to feature an interim heavyweight championship fight as the division’s next step. The UFC event page lists Alex Pereira against Ciryl Gane for the interim title, giving the winner a path to challenge for the bigger prize once Aspinall can return and the contract dispute is resolved one way or another. The deeper issue for the UFC is that it may be forced to balance the integrity of the title picture against the fact that its top heavyweight star is, by all accounts, caught in an ongoing fight for market value.

White also suggested there is a limit to what the UFC can do if negotiations break down. In comments reported by MMA Mania, White said you cannot force anybody to fight, pointing to the idea that Aspinall’s camp must actually want to proceed, then describing a wait-and-see scenario for how it plays out. For fans, that creates a tense question that sits behind every headline: whether this contract standoff becomes a short negotiation chapter or turns into a long pause that delays the division’s reset at the top.