Eddie Hearn has rubbished the idea that there is a rift between him and former broadcaster Sky Sports.
The Matchroom head honcho is deploying the travelling salesman persona this week in Saudi Arabia.
Hearn is on the ground in the kingdom as Anthony Joshua rematches Oleksandr Usyk for the WBA Super, IBF, and WBO world heavyweight titles on Saturday.
The pair will clash at the Jeddah Superdome, with Tyson Fury’s recently-relinquished Ring Magazine title also at stake in a vacant capacity, 11 months after Usyk, the former undisputed cruiserweight champion, dethroned ‘AJ’ at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
And 43-year-old Hearn, who has promoted Joshua since he made his professional debut back in October 2013 and saw his charge sign an official career-long promotional deal with the Brentwood-based company four days before his defeat to Usyk last September, couldn’t have been more unequivocal when brushing aside the rumours of a disagreement.
Hearn, who left Sky Sports in favour of signing a £100million five-year deal with the global entertainment platform DAZN last June, told Boxing Social during fight week:
“I’m available for an interview with my dog if he wants to talk to me!”
“I never turn down an interview and I always take care of our responsibilities. I’ve got a lot of friends there, we had a tremendous time there, we do a lot of business with them across other sports and I’ll be available for as many interviews with them as they want.”
The aforementioned streaming giant DAZN, to whom Joshua committed his broadcasting future back in June in a groundbreaking deal, will show the fight in the US, as well as more than 190 territories, including Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Poland, while Sky Sports Box Office will broadcast the fight in the UK & Ireland after paying a staggering £23million to do so.
Hearn added:
“They may not want one with me but that’s my job. They have it in the UK, DAZN has it in 190 countries, it’s on in Ukraine and everywhere.”
“We’re here for everybody and they need to sell some pay-per-views. There’s nobody better at that than me.”
“‘AJ’ always does great numbers and obviously, it was announced late in the day and it’s outside of the UK, but it’s going to do great numbers because it’s a great fight.”