Eddie Hearn has responded to Joshua Buatsi’s criticism of his offer for a Dmitry Bivol fight and the viewing numbers of DAZN.
The undefeated light heavyweight left Hearn’s Matchroom this week to ink a deal with BOXXER and Sky Sports.
Buatsi cited a desire to appear on Sky rather than something ‘people had to download and enter their email addresses’ for – a dig at DAZN, Matchroom’s exclusive worldwide broadcast partner that’s available via an app.
The promoter told Boxing Social that he was disappointed by the comments and stood by his work during their time together.
“Disappointed, really. I’ve always had a great relationship with him. I’ve done a great job – took him from British, to European, to world number one. Walked him into well over a million pound payday to fight Dmitry Bivol and he didn’t want it.
He then took issue with the broadcast comments given that Buatsi has ‘boxed on Sky his whole career’, hinting that it’s not the groundbreaking partnership the fighter or new promoter may hold it as.
Hearn believes that it was what ‘JB’ was sold rather than what he believes.
“He’s boxed on Sky his whole career other than two fights. Yeah, just saw a young man up there that’s been fed a load of bull***t and told what to say. It was quite out of character for him really, but honestly I wish him all the best.”
The promoter then confirmed that his company exercised matching rights on Buatsi’s contract – the power to look at an offer from a rival promoter and have the option to provide the equivalent – and said ‘we’ll see what happens’ in terms of any further action to be taken.
Of course, following Buatsi’s criticism of DAZN, the streaming service announced a linear channel on Sky to better reach those who didn’t want to use the app.