Eddie Hearn – Page 3

For years now the Matchroom/Sky Sports partnership has been at the heart of most major events in UK boxing but now with the competition starting to get its act together, are we now seeing cracks beginning to appear in their marriage? The alarm bells really started going for me last year when at first Kel Brook, then Tony Bellew both became Eddie Hearn’s latest fighters to move from Sky Sports Saturday Night Fight shows to PPV, leaving a very weak stable to fill the sky sports shows .

Whilst the rest of the boxing world has flourished in 2017, Sky Sports has found itself struggling to find headliners. We have went from guys like Tony Bellew and Kel Brook headlining for Sky Sports, to guys like Martin Murray and Frank Bugglioni and no matter how you dress it up are Domestic to European level at best. Recently we have also seen one of Eddie Hearn’s top prospects, Ohara Davies take on Josh Taylor in a fight which saw him quit like a dog on a card shown on C5 (free TV) which has put most of Sky Sports cards in 2017 to shame .

“There is only one person who can take the blame for this and it has to be Mr Eddie Hearn”

There is only one person who can take the blame for this and it has to be Mr Eddie Hearn. For too long, Hearn and sky sports had the monopoly in the sport in the UK and with compitition weak, Hearn knew the power he had and used it as a weapon within the sport. As Boxnation (Frank Warren) struggled along and Cyclone (McGuigans) had to work with C5 on small budget shows. Eddie Hearn was the the top of the pile with the might of Sky behind him….what could go wrong?

Eddie Hearn’s biggest mistake has has came from his own success in the PPV market. With Anthony Joshua being a marketing phenomenon and with Hearn making fights like GGG/Brook and Bellew/Haye, he was printing cash but neglecting non-PPV fighters. Whilst Hearn was concentrating on the cream, Frank Warren had signed a very lucrative deal with BT Sport and right away Warren went about signing all the best young talent in the country, even taking guys like Warrington and Nurse from Hearn. Warren had seen the the standard of Sky Sports shows had dropped and made his move to strike. When BT have went head to head with sky sports, it is sky who looked to be struggling to keep the pace. We have also seen Cyclone finally get a formula that works for them, promising to put on closely matched fights on free TV, with guys like Carl Frampton and Josh Taylor signed to them, they must be taken seriously in the business now. At the same time, Hearn has been told by Sky they want more and more PPV shows (worrying when you think Eddie is struggling to fill Sky Sports slots) and Kel Brook – A PPV Fighter, has just came off two losses, quitting in both .

“Why would AJ need Matchroom to take a big lumps of cash if he could keep the lot “

There is one final crack that must be looked at by Eddie Hearn. A small crack just now but one with the potential to bring his empire down. It’s looking more and more likely that Anthony Joshua is looking to step into the management/promotion side of things. Joshua Buatsi has already signed with the Heavyweight champion and as AJ signs more and more talent the need for Matchroom becomes smaller. Why would AJ need Matchroom to take a big lumps of cash if he could keep the lot? If Joshua did split and go it alone, I would be confident Sky Sports would want to deal with AJ rather than Hearn. After all, he is the biggest star in sport in the UK .

Steven Donnell

The good people of the jury, I intend to prove beyond all reasonable doubt, that the three accused are bringing the good name of Boxing into disrepute through what can only be described as corruption, blackmail, bullying and down right fascisim .

I will start presenting my case with Paul “The Unworthy” Smith . This man is in line to fight for the WBA Super Middleweight Title (Regular) by doing nothing of any relevence since taking on Andre Ward in 2015. Even then, Smith missed the 172lbs catchweight by a massive 4.4lbs, drawing P4P superstar Ward to call him “unprofessional”. Not that it made any difference of course, as Andre Ward took him to Skool before stopping him. Since then, Paul Smith has had 3 fights (sorry not just three fights but three 6 round fights) with his opponents, having combined losses of just 68, and Smith still managed to take one of those fights to the scorecards (recompose after laughter). To me and most other people, Paul Smith is a domestic level fighter. This is not an insult, in fact Paul Smith WAS a really good domestic level boxer, but the pinnacle of his career was in the 2014 Title fight against Arthur Abraham. He put in a good account of himself and lost the fight on the cards but since then had been in rapid decline until a few weeks ago, when the most remarkable thing happened .

Now lets have a look at Mendoza and the WBA’s role in this crime. Whilst I was on the WBA website, seeing how high a good friend of ours David Brophy was ranked at Super Middleweight, after David went to Australia and stopped Zac Dunn (a top 10 ranked guy with 4 governing bodies) there it was staring me back in the face ……No5 Paul Smith? Two places above No7 Arthur Abraham, five places above commonwealth champion No10 David Brophy. Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I know what you must be thinking “its obviously been a mistake” as I thought this myself “how can a guy who’s done nothing in years be ranked so high?”. In this digital age, you may even have thought that the WBA had been hacked and this was a hilarious prank by some cyber geek (again this had also crossed my mind). Fast Forward a few days and ALL becomes clear from this cloud of corruption. Whilst going through my timeline on twitter, I see the news has been dropped

“Super Middleweight Champion Tyrone Zeuge will take on Paul Smith jnr”

Now usually with things this shitty in boxing, you get angry, then that turns to laughter. Not this time. After seeing this, the anger turned to rage . Seeing what guys like David Brophy go through to get ranked, in the hope that one day the phone will ring with an offer to go fight for a World Title. For all the sacrifices made in and out the gym to not only go unnoticed but actually treated with contempt by a Governing body and there President, by giving Paul Smith his third shot a title. Now it has took me so long to bring this case against the WBA as Mendoza had said on Twitter that the WBA where going to review this fight. I had hoped a bit of sense and fairness would come through in the end, but then Mendoza’s twitter went cold. He’s not only ignoring the 1000’s of tweets asking about this fight , but he actually took to mocking fans of the sport by quoting there tweets and calling them “bitches” (paraphrasing there) .

Now that takes me on nicely to Mr Eddie “Adolf” Hearn , who may be last up in my case but he is certainly the mastermind behind this racket. Mr Hearn is the leader of one the five families of boxing (the other 4 being WBA,WBO,WBC and IBF) who’s power and reach should not be underestimated. If you are not a boxing fan you might not have even heard of this fight, that is because the mainstream boxing/sports media dare not speak up against Hearn or Matchroom. You can say what you want about Eddie but he does put on some of the biggest sporting events in the UK today, and thats his biggest weapon . If the media speak out against Hearn he does have the power to ban them from these shows and there build ups, which is usually are events in themselves . He treats the press like dogs. They do something for him they get a treat, they do something against him they get punished . Eddie Hearn does have one major flaw that this fight has exposed over the past few weeks and thats that he cannot accept any sort of criticism. On Hearn’s last IFL he went on a half hour rant about Tommy “Guru” Allan and Brian King, personally attacking both because they asked co-accused Gilberto Mendoza to justify Smiths ranking . Then it was my turn, Adolf Hearn had tweeted “anything is possible” and I replied “Paul Smith fighting for a title proves that’. He then went on the attack about how I am a “shit journalist” (for the record I don’t break the news I comment on it, that makes me a commentator) and even after I baited him with Paul Smith name and credentials, he didn’t come forward to his defence. I guess even the mighty Eddie Hearn can’t sell this one to the British public .

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, in the court of public opinion, I feel I have put forward the most compelling case …..how do you find the defendent ?

Below i would like to enter Exhibits A,B,C,D as evidence)