Hearn Eyes Oct. 11 Card With DeGale, Vazquez-Mitchell

By Shaun Brown and John MacDonald

After the recent success of the Carl Froch-George Groves rematch in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, promoter Eddie Hearn is looking to deliver another ‘super show,’ albeit at a smaller venue in the autumn.

Current plans call for an October 11 show at London’s O2 Arena, potentially hosting an all-star cast of some of the top talent in British boxing today. Mentioned among such plans are a targeted lightweight title fight between defending champ Miguel Vazquez and Kevin Mitchell; a rematch between Tony Bellew and former light heavyweight titlist Nathan Cleverly; and separate bouts featuring former two-division champ David Haye and 2012 Olympic Gold medalist Anthony Joshua.

“I’m quietly confident of making that (Vazquez) fight and October 11th is the plan and I don’t see many better options for Vazquez financially,” said Hearn.

Headlining such a card would be rising super middleweight contender James ‘Chunky’ DeGale, who is eyeing his first major title shot sometime in the future.

“It depends on what I can build,” said Hearn. “A lot depends on Bellew-Cleverly and Mitchell-Vazquez. It could go from being James DeGale on his own to James DeGale, Cleverly-Bellew, Joshua in a title fight, Mitchell-Vazquez and David Haye’s looking to return around that time as well. I haven’t had any chats with him but we welcome him on our shows.”

DeGale will need to wait on the next career move made by WBA/IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch before he gets a clearer idea of who and what he is fighting for on October 11th.

“If Froch doesn’t fight DeGale next then I will be delivering a big fight for James,” Hearn promises. “I quite like the idea of (former super middleweight champ Mikkel) Kessler against DeGale on October 11th and the winner fights Froch at Wembley next summer after he has beaten Chavez in Vegas.”

Of course, those plans depend when a Froch-Chavez Jr. showdown happens, which all but guarantees that DeGale will have to face someone in the interim.

“I’ve been in discussions with Bob Arum and ideally they’d like to make the Chavez Jr fight in October but I can’t see Carl fighting till November or December if at all this year. He may not fight until next spring because he’s enjoying time with his family and he’s doing that BBC [gymnastics] show [Tumble], chilling out and enjoying the fame. He wants the big one and that’s probably Chavez Jr.”

Hearn took time to inform BoxingScene.com of Matchroom’s plans for shows in the second half of the season.

“We’re looking at Septmber 13th in Manchester for Anthony Crolla, hopefully for a world title. (On) September 27th, we’ll probably be in Berlin for Paul Smith vs Arthur Abraham (WBO super middleweight title) and a couple of our guys on the bill over there. (Then), October 4th, we’re gonna be in Leeds with Josh Warrington and maybe Jamie McDonnell. We’ll be back in Glasgow probably in October as well.”

Please send news and views to sbrownboxing@gmail.com or @shaun_brown on Twitter.