By Edward Chaykovsky
There could be some competition at the World Boxing Association's mandatory purse bid between Tyson Fury (24-0, 18KOs) and Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53KOs), who currently holds the WBA, IBO, WBO and IBF world titles.
The purse bid is set for July 6th in Panama City. Fury is promoted by Hearn's UK rivals, Frank Warren and Mick Hennessey. If Hearn were to scoop in and outbid the competition, then he would place it on Sky Sports instead of Warren's network, BoxNation. Hearn would also look to place it in a UK stadium, where the fight would likely sell out in a very short time period.
Klitschko's company, K2 Promotions, rarely lose a purse bid. And it's not expected for them to lose on Monday when the champion is getting the bulk of the take.
Stranger things have happened, like in 2013 when Russian promoter Vladimir Hryunov (backed by Andrei Ryabinsky) blew away the competition by placing in a monster bid of $23 million to secure the rights to Klitschko vs. Alexander Povetkin.
but with the deadline for agreeing terms with mandatory WBO challenger Fury on Monday, Hearn has confirmed he is considering travelling to Panama for the resulting purse bidding.
Hearn told Sky Sports: "It's a big fight for the world heavyweight title involving a Briton and a great champion in Wladimir Klitschko. There is a purse bid in Panama and maybe we'll be on the plane to put a bid in ourselves."
"When a fight is made for a mandatory defence, and Tyson Fury is that mandatory challenger, you get a period of time when the two parties' promotional teams can privately negotiate terms. Once that period is up, if terms haven't been agreed, it goes to a purse bid.
"When you're not really aligned with a broadcaster - someone like a Tyson Fury - you can sit back and let it go to purse bids and see who wants to pay the most money. It's quite a unique situation and everybody will turn up with an envelope and the governing body will read out the bids. Whoever pays the most, gets the fight.
"Germany isn't our market so we'd be looking to stage that fight in the UK. It's a big fight but they could agree terms by Monday. This is the time with a few days to go that the pressure is really on. If they don't agree terms, then I'm sure there will be some interesting bidders.
"We'd look at September or October time. The deadline for that fight is October 24. Obviously Fury is from Manchester. It's a great O2 Arena fight as well. There's been plenty of talking about it happening outdoors.
"Of course I've thought about bidding. We'll have the paperwork ready to go but probably until Monday morning, we won't think that the bidding is going to go ahead because like I said, this deal can be done at any time. If the purse bids go ahead, I'm sure we'll be there."