British promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s planning on building the largest promotional stable in the history of boxing before he’s through. Hearn, who runs Matchroom Boxing, brags that he’s got the No.1 stable in the UK, and now he plans on expanding to the U.S to become the biggest stable over there as well.
Hearn has a lot of work to do for him to become the biggest force in U.S boxing. Right now, Hearn only has Daniel Jacobs and Jarrell Miller as far as American fighters. Jacobs is starting to show signs of deterioration following his grueling fight against knockout artist Gennady Golovkin last year.
Jacobs barely won his fight last Saturday night against junior middleweight contender. For Hearn to become the biggest U.S promoter, he’s going to need to scoop up a good portion of these fighters: Golovkin, the Charlo brothers, Deontay Wilder, Vasyl Lomachenko, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Errol Spence, Mikey Garcia, Regis Prograis, Jarrett Hurd, Dmitry Bivol, Sergey Kovalev, Jorge Linares, Leo Santa Cruz, Oscar Valdez, and Jerwin Ancasjas.
I doubt that Hearn will be able to sign any of those guys. If all Hearn has is Jacobs and Miller from the U.S, he’s not going to do anything in the States. Jacobs might be finished for good as soon as he faces Jermall Charlo. That’s a knockout waiting to happen. Hearn will be stuck with Jacobs, whose value will drop dramatically after he loses to Charlo.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I don’t see Warren as competition to me,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “I see someone who is in my market place, who is trying to compete with me. He’s trying to take a share in the market place. I have to take him seriously, but I don’t. I don’t think Matchroom is a competitor to Frank Warren. I think Cyclone and Hennessy Sports and people like that are competitors to Frank Warren. And then you’ve got the big boys, which is us, which is Top Rank, which is Golden Boy, which is Al Haymon,” Hearn said.
Warren has Daniel Dubois, Anthony Yarde, Carl Frampton and Billy Joe Saunders. Dubois could be a future star at heavyweight. Saunders is one of the best middleweights in the division. Frampton used to be the best featherweight in the division until recently.
Hearn’s share of the U.S market is minuscule in comparison to Top Rank, Golden Boy and Al Haymon. What Hearn lacks is a young powerhouse talent that has a long future ahead of him. Joshua probably 10 good years left in the UK, but you can’t say the same thing about Hearn’s U.S fighter Daniel Jacobs. He’s probably got a few years left before he’s over-the-hill and forgotten about.
I don’t see what Hearn is talking about. As far as I can tell, he only has Anthony Joshua in the UK. That’s the only popular guy Hearn has under his promotional banner in the UK. I know Hearn has a lot of fighters in his stable, but they’re not super popular. Hearn has fighters like Luke Campbell, Ryan Burnett, Dillian Whyte, Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Tony Bellew, Lee Selby, Scott Quigg, Josh Taylor, David Allen, Jamie McDonnell and Kal Yafai. Those aren’t huge numbers unfortunately.
The only big name Hearn has is Joshua, and he might see his popularity drop if he gets knocked out by Wilder. Khan and Brook are fairly popular, but they’re not guys that Hearn can plug in with a top talent like Spence, Thurman, Erislandy Lara, Jarrett Hurd or Jermell Charlo and expect them to win. If Hearn starts matching Brook and Khan against those types of fighters, they’re going to lose and lose often.
Tony Bellew is one of Hearn’s money makers, but he’s another guy that he can’t put in with the best fighters at cruiserweight or heavyweight because he’ll get stomped. I mean, Bellew will be blasted out in short order if Hearn throws him in the ring with the likes of Deontay Wilder, Joshua, Adam Kownacki, Dillian Whyte, Luis Ortiz, Murat Gassiev, Oleksandr Usyk, Yunier Dorticos, Jarrell Miller, Kubrat Pulev, Krystof Glowacki, Joseph Parker and Mairis Brieids. This is just a small list of fighters that Bellew would lose to if Hearn let him fight against
”Obviously, what we’re doing in American, we’re on HBO and next week we’re going to drop the bomb,” Hearn said. ”We are on another level to Frank. I think what Frank is doing is good. You have to respect Frank, because he’s been around for a long time. Yesterday was basically an Eddie Hearn press conference. Every clip was Eddie Hearn related. It was cringe-worthy, especially talking about the fighters and the new platform. When he signed with BT, I thought it was a long term deal. He just renewed the deal and it was up after one year. Frank won’t give in. He’ll always carry on, but in live boxing, there are levels to the game and I’m really confident of our position. In the British market, we’re obviously No.1, but in the global market, it’s important to me. We’re a global business and I’m looking to take a position in the global boxing market. I’m looking to build a stable like you’ve never seen before in world boxing. We already have the best stable in in the UK, but now we’re going to get the best stable in the U.S,” Hearn said.
Once Joshua gets knocked out and unseated as the heavyweight champion, Hearn is going to have a hard time. Let’s look at the facts. Khan, Brook and Bellew are on their way out of the game. As soon as they face someone good, they’re all losing. Bellew will likely get knocked out this Saturday night when he faces David Haye in the rematch. Those three guys are a significant portion of Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing stable once you remove Joshua from the equation. Hearn has a bunch of smaller fighters in the lighter weight classes in his stable, but those guys aren’t huge stars and likely never become PPV replacements for Joshua. There isn’t a gravy train fighter among them. That’s what Hearn needs, one good fighter that can take over for Joshua once he gets beaten by Wilder.