Rival broadcasters will be competing across pay-per-view channels over the coming months, with Sky Box Office showing the heavyweight title fight between Oleksandr Usyk and DAZN PPV showing the 157lbs catchweight fight between Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn.
One man who will be involved in both is Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn.
When speaking to Boxing Social the promoter was asked about the expected ‘buys’ for Usyk-Joshua 2:
“AJ always does great numbers.”
“It was announced late in the day and it’s outside of the UK, but it’s gonna do great numbers.”
“It’s a great fight.”
Matchroom, who are now partnered with the online streaming service DAZN, have promoted Joshua ever since he turned professional in 2013. Though in a surprising twist, even more so since it was revealed that AJ had recently signed a multifight deal with DAZN, Sky Box Office won the exclusive UK broadcasting rights to the rematch.
The announcement came just weeks before fight night, leading many to question if there was sufficient time to build the event up.
When subsequently asked to compare the size of the Joshua fight with October’s Eubank Jr. vs Benn bout, Hearn was definitive in his response:
“Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn [is bigger].”
“I think that it’s the biggest pay-per-view that I’ve ever done, honestly. It’s just absolutely huge.”
“The response from that fight, it cuts across so many different generations. You know, the 40-plus, the 60-plus, the 80-plus, to the younger generation who follow the fighters now. [It captures] the age group that followed their parents.”
‘That fight is an absolute monster.”
Indeed, the Eubank vs Benn contest appears to have captured the imagination of the public, bringing back a rivalry which began in 1990 and which gripped audiences, boxing and otherwise, worldwide. Whilst Usyk-Joshua does not have such history, with the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO and Ring Magazine titles available, as an event it is no less prestigious.