Tosin Olasunkanmi
Hearn says despite the resistance he’s facing, his ambitions for Matchroom Boxing are global.
We all know the promoter wars between Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn and Mayweather Promotion’s Leonard Ellerbe has been heating up lately. In this video interview with journalists,Hearn dishes more on the origin of his static with Ellerbe and how there’s been a concerted effort by the American boxing industry to make things as hard as possible for him. Check out some of what Hearn had to say below.
Hearn on the genesis on his beef with Leonard Ellerbe
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“It was a betting company in the UK that put up odds on the fight and I guess we live in a world where these exhibition fights become talked about and quite big. I made it clear that if I got $10M for that fight I would consider it. The split would have to be 90/10, obviously, because Leonard does like two shows a year and I do 50.
“I can’t fight either, really. Don’t know if he can, probably not. I think he can a little bit but he’s a lot older than me. So it’s a good 50/50 fight, but I don’t think you’re gonna see it any time soon.”
On Ellerbe publicly stating Canelo’s last fight performed horribly on PPV
“It did unbelievable numbers, did 600,000 buys, which a tremendous first effort. But these people, don’t matter if it’s Leonard of Bob (Arum) — but you got to understand how this game works. It’s Me v. Them. And it’s so fuckin’ flattering. You imagine some Brit coming to America and the whole of the American industry ganging up, if you like, to try and freeze me out.
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“And you can imagine I’m talking Leonard, Lou DiBella, Bob Arum, Stephen Espinoza — ‘Fuck, do that. You see that? Say this, say that. Say I only did these amount of numbers, call it Dark Zone. Yeah, that was good, keep going, keep going.’ And all the energy that they’re using is just like evaporates, while my energy — which is why I can go fuckin’ Australia, Jeddah, San Antonio, and LA all in week and smash it up. We’ve got much bigger plans for all this.
So what I’m experiencing in the US is only what I experienced in the UK when I started, which was resistance from the industry. But that’s flattering in a way. I want to leave a mark wherever I go.
I’m not interested in conforming, I’m not interested in pretending to be something I’m not, going in and making friends with these people and being two-faced. I’ll be friendly, but I’m gonna speak my mind, and I’m gonna use my sarcastic British tongue that sometimes goes completely over people’s heads, and I’m gonna be myself. And you don’t have to like me, or you can like me, but you will respect me when everything’s over.
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“And people like Leonard Ellerbe, when I look at what I’m doing in the sport versus what he’s doing in the sport — and this is no criticism of him, I think he’s done a great job with Tank — but there’s levels and levels between us. I’m taking the sport to a global scale, doing shows around the world of unprecedented size. And he’s just doing two or three shows a year.
“Also, it’s good, people talking about me in America: Bob, Leonard, Espinoza, Lou. It’s helping my profile massively in the States, which they don’t really realize. So, the more, the merrier. And I never take it personally. You never see me raising my voice or swearing at people or telling them I’m going to knock them out when I see them or stomp on their head! Like, they’ve completely lost their mind.
They want me out. If I was so useless, if I was such a clown, why would you want me out so bad? So bad! They would dance in the streets if I retreated from America. Bad news, though. No way. We’re just getting started here and America is just part of the plan…It’s a real global vision for the sport.”
