Matchroom Boxing head Eddie Hearn is calling on all promoters, including himself, to improve the quality control of the fights they present to their respective broadcast partners.
The British executive’s public plea comes as Showtime announced it would leave boxing at the end of 2023 after a 37-year run in the sport.
As Hearn prepares plans for his schedule of events in 2024 for streaming partner DAZN, he’s adamant that he’ll be leading a market correction with hopes of putting an end to meager matchups.
“Fighter purses are out of control, and they are not delivering on the value that the price represents. Boxing rights are very expensive. When you get it right, boxing is a huge success and rates well, delivers pay-per-view events, and arenas are full. Boxing as a business has to deliver more value to the broadcasters so they stay in the sport,” Hearn said in an interview with IFL.
Hearn noted that Showtime had arguably one of the best years in its history before bowing out of boxing.
In 2023, Showtime presented PPV showdowns featuring David Benavidez vs. Caleb Plant in March, Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia in April, Terence Crawford vs. Errol Spence Jr. in July, as well as Canelo Alvarez vs. Jermell Charlo in September. They are still set to produce a Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade PPV on Nov. 25 and a yet-to-be-announced PPV show on Dec. 9.
“The purses continue to increase, and the advisors and the managers continue to want easy fights that don’t deliver,” Hearn continued. “We [the promoters] are the weak ones because sometimes we let them do it. We will be parting ways with fighters because some of them don’t deliver commercially on the numbers they want and some of them are not prepared to take the fights that we believe they should be taking … It’s like, ‘guys, you’ve had your warm-up fights – no one is interested.’ We need to make big fights. It doesn’t have to be a 50-50. It can just be competitive … fighters go stale for inactivity and having irrelevant fights. Every promoter is guilty of it, and we have to stop that … broadcasters can’t continually pay money for shows that don’t deliver.”
After promoting uneven matchups earlier in the year featuring Anthony Joshua victories against Jermaine Franklin and late-replacement opponent Robert Helanius, as well as an Alvarez PPV event against John Ryder, Hearn is having a much stronger fourth quarter that speaks to the sweeping changes he’s looking to spearhead.
Earlier this month, Hearn promoted Leigh Wood’s come-from-behind knockout win against Josh Warrington.
During back-to-back weeks in December, Hearn will present a PPV featuring Devin Haney as he challenges Regis Prograis for the 140-pound WBC title as well as a 112-pound title unification bout between Sunny Edwards and Jessie Rodriguez.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer, and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com, or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.