Hearn: We Made a Huge Offer To Davis, His Promoter Declined

By Victor Salazar

New York - Usually in boxing when two rival promoters work together it’s either because of rules set forth by sanctioning bodies for title fights and eliminators or because there is too much money involved to pass up the opportunity.

Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sports and Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions have long been rivals in the British boxing circuit.

However the two came together and agreed to putting a fight in Boston - where Hearn’s fighter Demetrius Andrade (25-0, 16 KO’s) will fight Warren’s fighter, WBO Middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KO’s) on October 20th on DAZN, the streaming service that has given Hearn a massive boxing budget and multiple dates for fights in the US.

Last week, Hearn made a deal to co-promote Tevin Farmer with Lou Dibella, as well as co-promoting the title fight between Danny Jacobs (34-2, 29 KO’s) who Hearn promotes and Sergey Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KO’s) who Dibella promotes for the vacant IBF middleweight title on HBO.

When the money is too good, politics and rivalries mean little according to Hearn.

“Everybody talks about rivalry and politics,” Hearn told BoxingScene.com. “It gets to a point where the money is good where people don’t give a shit about rivalry and politics. You have to act in the best interest of your fighter. Lou Dibella and Tevin Farmer received life changing money to fight big fights.”

The addition of Farmer (26-4-1, 5 KO’s) is one piece of the puzzle in the 130 lb. division but was essential according to Hearn.

“You look at that division, there’s Miguel Berchelt and Gervonta Davis, stated Hearn. “There’s super fights to be made and we have Farmer and a piece of the jigsaw, now we have to get the other pieces. Gervonta Davis, he’ll be desperate for that fight. We can pay him more money than anyone else can.”

As for Davis, Hearn says he’s tried to bring him on board but to no avail.

“We’ve already made a huge offer for Davis to Mayweather Promotions and for some reason they turned it down and didn’t want to do that. The public demand will say you have to make this unification. Of course he’s going to want the fight, it’s a good fight, a lot of trash talking and it’s a unification.”