Eddie Hearn, the face behind Matchroom boxing has been addressing questions about his upcoming promotion this weekend, he shared his opinion that he feels the matchup getting the recognition it deserves and delved into detail on the world title unification in what promises to be a significant night for Irish Boxing.
Hearn first cited the busy boxing schedule for taking some of the focus off of this weekends’ bantamweight clash. “You’ve got some huge fights all around. You’ve got Joshua coming up next week for example, Frampton’s coming back and Ryan’s not yet at the profile level that you’d expect going into a fight like this. Normally you’d have two defences and by that stage it would be a huge fight.”
Hearn also bemoaned the fact that bantamweights are always afforded very little attention as opposed to their larger counterparts saying “They’re also bantamweights, which goes under the radar with the casual fan as well. They like big guys and heavyweights. So I think it’s a really tough ask for Ryan – the fight but also with everything that’s going around boxing in general at the moment, it’s kind of like these fights are becoming a bit standard rather than a freak because really this is a freak fight.”
“To get a unification fight at this stage of your career, the first ever one in Ireland. You’d expect the streets to be shouting, but he hasn’t built that far yet where normally a fighter’s career when they’re in unification fights, they’ve been built and built and built. We’re still in the building phase, which makes it quite unusual to be in this fight, but we’re here.”
Hearn also touched on what he perceives to be a fast track route deployed by Burnett and his team and argued his career as his profile has not yet been correctly built and this has led to a lack of exposure ahead of a great matchup. Burnett’s desire to strive for greatness has overridden Hearn’s input on the situation , the Matchroom boss has proven not one to stand in the way as he did when Kell Brook sought to defend his title in a dangerous matchup against the dangerous Errol Spence Jr earlier this year “Probably, I would say he is [moving too fast], but that’s not for me to answer, that’s for Adam Booth to answer and if they feel he’s ready for this fight then he’s ready. They believe he can win this fight, so if you do believe that and there’s another belt on the line, you probably should take the fight.”
On a final note, Hearn also touched on what victory means for his young charge besides both the WBA and IBF world titles “Victory makes him a star here, victory can make him a star in America and he seems to be on a fast track. He doesn’t seem to be interested in doing the traditional thing, which is maybe taking easier fights.” Hearn concluded.