By Tris Dixon
Promoter Eddie Hearn has a busy end to 2018, with shows in America, the UK and Monte Carlo.
But he said he won’t be the one putting on Chris Eubank Jr-James DeGale [It’s not our fight”] if it happens and added that Kell Brook might be prepared to wait to fight again in February, providing Amir Khan is in the opposite corner. Khan has already stated that he wants to fight early next year.
He is also speaking to Tom Loeffler about Gennady Golovkin and Golden Boy [“they’re just collating offers”] for Saul Alvarez.
He also has Danny Jacobs, who has his fight with Sergiy Derevyanchenko on October 27.
“It’s his last fight for HBO unless they can deliver him the Canelo fight,” said Hearn.
Then, of the network’s boxing demise, he said: “I thought they would go one of two ways, which is stand up and fight or get out. I was quite surprised when they got out. I don’t think they’ll be out completely. I think they’ll try to stay in the Canelo business and maybe the big-fight pay-per-view business, but the problem is unless you have the appetite to fight and dig into your pockets you might as well leave right now because it’s gone completely crackers. The market in America has gone completely berserk and it’s going to be really difficult for people to survive, unless they have the deep pockets and the brains.”
Was he the catalyst, announcing his billion-dollar DAZN deal? Would it have been like this had he not shown his hand?
“No,” he said. “Everyone was bubbling along but we came in and everyone has had to up their game and spend more money. Basically the impact we’re having is the same as the PBC had, when they started. They were overpaying fighters, we had to step up, Top Rank and everyone had to step up and now they’re overpaying again.”
Is he overpaying?
“Of course,” he went on. “Fighters in America are drastically overpaid because what they’re generating commercially, it doesn’t stack up to the numbers of the purses. But there’s never been a better time to be a fighter, that’s for sure.”
