In his column for the Daily Star, hall-of-fame promoter Frank Warren has hit back at Eddie Hearn’s comments that Oleksandr Usyk would beat Tyson Fury in a heavyweight unification bout.
Warren, who promotes Fury, has a rocky relationship with Hearn. The two often trade digs via the media and it’s unlikely that any matchup with fighters between the two camps will be organised smoothly, if at all.
In reference to Hearn’s thoughts on the potential unification, Warren revisited some other predictions of his.
“He said that Deontay Wilder would beat Tyson on three occasions. He said that we would not sell any tickets in America yet it broke the record for a heavyweight fight in Las Vegas.”
“He said that Dillian Whyte would beat Tyson and we wouldn’t do any business for that fight yet it broke the Wembley box-office record and our man won by knockout. He said that Anthony Joshua would knock out Usyk twice.”
“He even said Canelo Alvarez would beat Dmitry Bivol. His boxing predictions are about as good as haemorrhoids would be for Frankie Dettori.”
“Whatever happens, after Joshua’s defeat last weekend, Hearn is now out of the heavyweight title picture.”
Warren went on to criticise Anthony Joshua for his now infamous speech following his defeat to Usyk. The Brit has since apologised for how he acted.
“‘AJ’ needs some time out to sort himself out physically and mentally. I’m not sure what the meltdown was about at the end of the fight but I think the reason he threw the belts out of the ring was because he genuinely thought he won.”
“That was probably down to the fact his corner was telling him he was winning the fight. What was that about? He went out of the ring, came back and then dug himself into a bigger hole than he was in before when he got on the microphone.”
“The stuff about limited experience – he’s 32, he won silver at the world amateur championships in 2011, he won the Olympics in 2012. He’s had a good ride as a fighter and had five years as a world champion.”
Behind the scenes, Warren is working to make the Fury Usyk fight happen. His comments so far have been buoyant, although it’s unclear where the money his fighter is demanding (a mere £500 million) will come from.