Matchroom Promoter Eddie Hearn has given his opinions on recent issues in boxing, where networks and contracts have gotten in the way of big fights.
Recent headlines surrounding broadcast and commercial issues with potential fights between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs Ryan Garcia and Errol Spence Jr vs Terence Crawford have frustrated fans.
Talking about the failure to make these fights, Hearn told FightHub:
“I think DAZN are very willing to work with broadcasters, to make sure that the best fights are made. Again, I don’t know enough about the Tank-Garcia issue, it sounds like Showtime don’t want DAZN involved and if they did, the fight would get made instantly.
Then you look at Spence-Crawford after Crawford’s comments last night, it was ‘we offered them more money than we would have made, but ultimately we couldn’t do it because it wasn’t a PBC fight, and they wouldn’t allow that’.
If Errol Spence was really offered $20/$25 million to fight Terence Crawford, he probably should have taken it, but was obviously told not to take it. Now, he is going to be fighting for a quarter of that to fight [Keith] Thurman or [Eimantas] Stanionis.”
Hearn went on to say what a deal for Anthony Joshua vs Deontay Wilder, a clash which he thinks might even be bigger than ‘AJ’ vs Fury, could look like.
“I know the Fury fight is big, but ‘AJ’ vs Wilder is a huge fight, so we will continue those conversations with Shelly Finkel [Wilder’s promoter] and hopefully we can work with Deontay Wilder.
That’s all you can do really and ultimately, our offer, to Deontay Wilder, would probably be just that. It’s an amount of money for the fight.
If we have to work with cross-networks, we have no problem looking at that. Anthony Joshua is exclusive to DAZN, we can look at a dual-broadcast, we can look at just making you an offer and maybe contractually you can just accept that offer, I don’t know.”
Fans are hoping that 2023 will finally be the year where the big matchups in the sport get made.