Gary Russell Jr. has revealed he turned down a $1 million offer from promoter Eddie Hearn to face Josh Warrington in the UK as he felt he was being undervalued.
The quicksilver WBC featherweight champion and Leeds’ Warrington, who relinquished his IBF crown last month rather than rematch with mandatory contender Kid Galahad, are widely considered to be the two best 126-pounders on the planet.
But Russell (31-1, 18 KOs) said he found Hearn’s offer unacceptable and will instead move on to a likely bout with his mandatory challenger – currently Rey Vargas (34-0, 22 KOs) – before embarking on his first two-fight year since 2014. In a quirk of boxing, Russell has only fought once a year for the last six calendar years.
“Eddie Hearn reached out to me through Instagram,” Russell, from Capitol Heights, Maryland, told ‘The PBC Podcast’. “He offered me a million dollars to fight Josh Warrington for a unification match. And I felt like it was a little [low], it was beneath my standards.
“To be honest, at [featherweight, there’s], nobody in my weight division right now that I would say that I’m actually targeting, that I want. All the guys that I want is at maybe ’30 or ’35. But I think right now I’m at the dilemma whereas though I’m just coming up on the [mandatory] timeframe because I am a title-holder. So, I’ll compete against the next best guy [rather] than the [rival] champion.
“Whoever the next best guy is, we’ll compete against him and, god willing, we get through that. Immediately after, we wanna start working on some things, so we can get us another fight in this year. Because once my mandatory is completely satisfied, then I have the ability to go and take another fight. The question is, who is gonna fight me? Who would be willing to take the fight?”