Eddie Hearn will stage four shows at the 12,500-capacity SSE Arena, Wembley, as he aims to increase pressure for a return of fans.
The Oleksandr Usyk-Dereck Chisora heavyweight fight on October 31 will be the first of the shows at the venue, formerly known as Wembley Arena. It will then be followed at Wembley by the show headlined by Katie Taylor against Miriam Gutierrez on November 14 and then the November 21 Dillian Whyte-Alexander Povetkin bill. The final card will be headlined by Billy Joe Saunders making a defence of his WBO super-middleweight title. That is currently scheduled for November 28, although it might move back a week if Sky Sports decide not to go head-to-head with BT Sport’s screening of the Daniel Dubois-Joe Joyce heavyweight clash.
The shows will go ahead whether or not fans are allowed but, by going to such a big venue, Hearn hopes to be able to let fans in if he is given the green light by the Government. If fans are allowed in, none will be allowed at ringside. It will also provide a useful trial looking ahead to Anthony Joshua’s world heavyweight title defence in December, which Hearn hopes to admit more than 4,000 for.
“I am planning the fights with no fans at the moment,” Hearn said to BoxingScene.com. “We will have the same venue for four events and just keep canvassing, asking for 1,500 or 2,000 fans to be let in.
“I don’t like to go into big arenas and seeing loads of empty seats everywhere. We have to get creative with the production, but the plan is to fill them up or at least certainly get some bums on seats.
“Early doors I hope we can get 1,000 in, show the Government how we can get it done safely and from there escalating to AJ.”
A rise in coronavirus cases, which has even seen Hearn and his father, Barry, test positive, has led to more restrictions in the UK, with all pubs and restaurants in central Scotland closing for 16 days and several areas in lockdown.
Hearn is also hopeful that a crowd of 4,700 may be permitted for Anthony Joshua’s WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight title defence on December 12 at the O2 Arena, London, after a concert the previous week at the venue was given approval to have a live audience.
The band Squeeze will play the O2 Arena on December 5 and 4,700 socially-distanced seats will be on sale at the 19,000-seater venue.
“There is a music event approved the week before AJ,” he said. “That would suggest we might be able to do that number for AJ, but that is subject to them not changing their mind. We had the Crucible, 400 people for every day for the World Snooker Championships and after one day they closed it down.
“The pressure is definitely mounting for fans to be allowed back, but on the other hand they are talking about closing pubs and restaurants,” Hearn said. “So how can you close pubs and restaurants but allow people to go to sporting events?
“Sooner or later they are going to have a decision on their hands. Do you open things up and put in what measures you can, or do you close everything down again and everything could be screwed?”
No opponent has been announced yet for Saunders, who has not boxed since his knockout win over Marcelo Coceres on the KSI-Logan Paul bill in Los Angeles last November. However, Hearn says he is keen on an all British fight.
“I’d like to do a Brit,” he said. “So it is probably one of [Martin] Murray, [Rocky] Fielding or [John] Ryder.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for Boxing Scene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.