By Victor Salazar
New York - Making power moves is what Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sports does. As he looks to cross the seas of the Atlantic to the United States and try to map out the same success he's had in the UK boxing markets, he arrived with a bang with the signing of middleweight Daniel Jacobs.
Hearn knows that things won’t be easy in the US market - but as he announced the fight between Daniel Jacobs (33-2, 29 KO’s) and Luis Arias (18-0. 9 KO’s) with a co-feature of Jarrell Miller(19-0-1, 17 KO’s) and Maruiz Wach (33-2, 17 KO’s) - you could sense his eagerness to be successful.
“There’s other stuff to be added as well with Miller vs Wach. We have a lot of success in the UK, and I think we want to challenge ourselves. We feel we have a chance to take up a foothold in the U.S. market. It’s not going to be done overnight but we know what we’re doing and we’ll start November 11th," Hearn told BoxingScene.com.
At the forefront of those plans is Jacobs. Hearn feels the Brooklyn fighter should already be a superstar and it's now become his job to make him one.
“I met Danny Jacobs a while back and I had a good chat with his manager Keith Connolly,” stated the promoter. “I sort of joked with him that if I had some dates with HBO that I’d come knocking, and he said 'yes please.' It moved quite quickly. I look at Danny Jacobs and I’m like 'how are you not a superstar, you’re a star, how are you not a superstar. You look a million dollars, you’re a great fighter and in my opinion number one middleweight in the world.'”
Hearn, like some others, felt Jacobs edged out middleweight king Gennady Golovkin back March.
“I felt he beat Golovkin. You look like a superstar, talk like a superstar, your story is incredible. You have ‘Hands of Stone’ and ‘Bleed for This’ and you’re still not at the level of the 'miracle man' Daniel Jacobs.”
The plan is to keep Jacobs active and then go after another big fight with either Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin.
“We have to make sure the U.S. public is aware of this. He’s someone I believe can be a massive star in the world of boxing. He’s excited to be promoted and excited to be active. He’ll fight on November 11th and he’ll fight again in March. Ultimately we want the winner of Canelo-Golovkin and when we did this deal we were looking at the winner of the first fight, now he’s going to have to wait. But that’s ok... we’ll keep him active, keep the profile raised and keep him at the forefront of boxing," Hearn said.
