GLENDALE, Arizona – Eddie Hearn’s long-time promotional peer in the UK, Frank Warren, and the legendary fight-pitchman Don King, 94, have filed lawsuits against the Saudi Arabians presiding over an attempted new boxing frontier.
While Hearn has watched two of his former standouts, cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia and welterweight contender Conor Benn, depart his Matchroom Boxing stable for the new Saudi-backed Zuffa Boxing promotion headed by Dana White, he’s taking a different approach.
Hearn said he wants to fight them with superior talent and quality bouts rather than seeking litigious satisfaction.
Hearn took stock of the shifting landscape in a conversation with BoxingScene leading to his card on Saturday night topped by the super-featherweight unification bout between IBF champion Eduardo “Sugar” Nunez of Mexico and WBO titlist and fellow Mexican Emanuel Navarrete. A rousing 12,000 or more fans are predicted at Desert Diamond Arena.
“You know boxing – it’s the wild west, a different kind of animal to just control as your own sport, as [White] does with the UFC and MMA,” Hearn said. “So they’re going to have to put up with things. You’ve seen Dana at his press conferences – [calling rival promoters, including Hearn] ‘Fucking idiot,’ ‘Pussy,’ all these things – [and we’re like], ‘Calm down mate, we’re just getting started’.
“They’re used to total control, and you’re never going to get it in boxing unless you buy everyone out. And we’re the wrong kind of characters for that. We’re resilient. This is what we do. We go up against each other and battle away against the politics. They don’t want to do any battling. They just want to do what they want.”
Benn parted with Hearn after the promoter’s fierce backing of the fighter through a PED crisis in favor of a one-fight, $15million agreement to meet veteran former champion 140lbs champion Regis Prograis in April as the co-main event to Tyson Fury-Arslanbek Makhmudov.
The compelling wrinkle in this Hearn-White, Matchroom-Zuffa, DAZN-Paramount+ rivalry is the deep involvement of Saudi Arabia’s principal boxing financier, Turki Alalshikh.
Not only does Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund own a percentage of DAZN and stage Alalshikh’s The Ring and Riyadh Season fights on the streaming service, his entertainment company Sela was identified by an executive for Zuffa’s parent company as entirely funding Benn’s $15million.
“Ultimately, these lawsuits that keep coming – that’s not good for anybody,” Hearn said. “That’s a lot of pressure on a public company, TKO. It’s not a good look when they’ve already got the class-action lawsuits from the UFC and now they’ve got [Warren’s] $1billion boxing lawsuit.”
It signals that Alalshikh will experience difficulty maintaining business alliances with both sides, Hearn said, even if Alalshikh believes he can compartmentalize his events.
“He has his ‘Ring’ shows; he has Saudi ‘Riyadh Season’ shows; TKO/Zuffa. Personally, I don’t think he’s going to want to put all his eggs in one basket,” Hearn said.”Or maybe he is; maybe he’s trying to get everybody. Unfortunately for them, 98 per cent of our fighters are under contract.”
Hearn said he’s kept his three-belt super-flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez from leaving for Zuffa and should have a fight announcement for Rodriguez in short order, but noted he does not have four-division champion Shakur Stevenson, whom he formerly promoted, under contract.
Some, like Warren, see Alalshikh as tipping his hand toward where his loyalty lies: Zuffa Boxing.
“In terms of our relationship with Turki, people have said, ‘Oh, he’s going up against you’, well, not really,” Hearn said. “What I like about Turki is you know where you stand. If you have something he wants, he’s going to work with you. If you don’t, he’s not going to.
“We will joke, and he’ll say, ‘I’m going to [get] you, Eddie’, and I’ll say, ‘I’m going to [get] you, too’. It’s like a joke thing. But he would do that. He has no real emotional attachments. I think he quite likes me; I think he’s quite funny. And vice versa. But I always know where I stand with him, so I don’t get offended if he goes against me or the other way. What I get offended by is if someone is like that with you and you do so much for them, and then they fuck you.”
That’s a reference to Benn.
“Benn was a bitter pill to swallow, mainly because of our relationship,” Hearn said. “He’s a good fighter and everything, but the reality is we did a lot for him. That’s what hurt. But the main thing is, if this [move to Zuffa] is directed at me, it’s a very expensive move. He’s fighting Regis Prograis on an undercard for $15million.
“What we can’t do is make poor decisions for our business. That’s why the Conor Benn stuff, I feel it was manufactured. Ultimately, the money’s wrong. If [Zuffa] want to pay, congratulations. We just expected it to play out in a different fashion. Everybody’s different, but, to me, you just do things in a separate way, which is, ‘Listen, you’ve had my back for fucking ever. I have this offer…’”
Hearn admitted a reunion with Benn is possible. “There’s a conversation to be had,” he said.
In the meantime, there’s the focus on improving his Matchroom schedule that shifts from Leigh Wood-Josh Warrington in the UK to this US return to a vibrant market that Hearn adores in a cross-promoted fight with Bob Arum’s Top Rank.
Hearn has also made a strong financial offer to promote the appetizing bout pitting in-their-prime, unbeaten junior-middleweights Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Vergil Ortiz Jnr.
Many in the industry foresee a future when the old guard of American and British promoters will need to fully turn their backs to Saudi influence and engage liberally in deep, cross-promoted cards to counter the rich investment into free agents by the Saudis and Zuffa.
“Everybody knows that… there’s been no meeting where everyone has come together,” he said. “But a good example is Navarrete from Top Rank fighting on a Matchroom show with us paying the bills. We don’t care who pays the bills. We just want to make great fights,” Hearn said.
“If we can do that, like ‘Boots’-Ortiz – if we can get that over the line, that’s the best fight in American boxing. That’s what we have to keep doing: rack them in, another one and another one. We’ve just got to keep outperforming them. Because let’s be honest: they’re not making great fights on Zuffa Boxing. The product is not very good.
“Now, the bluster of Dana White – if you actually strip it back and look at what you’re getting – if I was putting on those shows Dana is doing, I’d get ridiculed.”
Hearn insists a steady slate of world-championship fights will hammer that point home.
Opetaia’s Zuffa debut on March 8 in Las Vegas, comes against the little-known 15th-ranked contender Brandon Glanton.
“So what do we have to worry about, other than they’re powerful people?” Hearn asked. “Of course they’re powerful people.
“We’re powerful people. We put on the fights. We know boxing inside and out. A lot of people feel personally about this movement – that they’re trying to destroy boxing as we know it.”
Hearn nodded to the personal attendance in Glendale by New Jersey-based IBF president Daryl Peoples and Puerto Rico’s WBO president Gustavo Olivieri.
That contrasts with Zuffa Boxing’s push for a new Ali Act that will allow the promotion to rank its fighters and award its own belts – Opetaia is expected to win the first Zuffa belt on March 8 – while shunning the established four sanctioning bodies.
“[Zuffa] wants [the sanctioning bodies] dead and finished,” Hearn said. “What are we going to do about that? We’re going to come together and show them great boxing.
“No fake belts. Legacy. You know what I mean? The championships.”
It requires a discerning attitude from the boxing fan to navigate how the opposing events are being packaged, Hearn said.
“It’s smart what they’re trying to do, trying to spin the narrative that this Zuffa belt is the belt,” he said. “How? To people who don’t really know… who listen to [Zuffa Boxing broadcaster] Max Kellerman?
“The promo of [Zuffa heavyweights] Charles Martin versus Efe Ajagba [February 15] – ‘the best versus the best’ – the casual fan may be, ‘OK, OK, OK’, thinking this Zuffa belt straight out of the WWE is the belt for boxing. If you know boxing, you say, ‘Oh no it’s not.’ And it’s not for me. So we’ve got to show the belts that have heritage.”
