The war of words between promoters Eddie Hearn and Bob Arum continues.
Hearn, the head of Matchroom Boxing, has feuded with Arum, the founder of Top Rank, for the past couple of years, principally through the media.
The latest flare-up was prompted after Arum conducted an interview in which he blasted Hearn for being a “joke” in the US boxing scene, which, admittedly, is not a new critique from the nonagenarian.
“Among the boxing people in the United States, Eddie is a joke,” Arum said. “Really, a joke, a clown. He’s taken the DAZN money and had a big campfire with the money. Even Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy, on the same platform, has outshone Eddie. So I don’t take Eddie very seriously. I don’t take any promoter who is so braggadocious, and frankly doesn’t deliver, seriously. But in Eddie’s own mind, he’s the greatest thing that ever lived.”
When Hearn, 43, was shown the footage of Arum on someone’s iPhone in a subsequent interview, he cheekily held the phone next to his face and asked observers around him to compare visages.
“Who do you reckon has a bigger future in boxing?” Hearn said in an interview with iFL TV. “Who do you prefer as a promoter?”
“I like ‘braggadocious,’” Hearn continued. “What I can’t understand is that everyone in America thinks I’m a joke. I promote Canelo Alvarez. We just did 50,000 in Guadalajara [for the John Ryder fight]. I did Canelo-[Gennadiy] ‘Triple G’ [Golovkin] last year. I did Canelo-[light heavyweight titlist Dmitry] Bivol. We sold out Madison Square Garden with Katie Taylor.”
Hearn then took Arum to task for the reportedly tepid pay-per-view sales garnered by the undisputed lightweight championship between champion Devin Haney and challenger Vasiliy Lomachenko that took place last weekend at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on ESPN. (Top Rank has an exclusive content deal with ESPN.) Haney won a unanimous decision, although not without some controversy.
Veteran reporter Dan Rafael posited that the fight did “about 150,000” buys in the United States, which, if true, would be an underwhelming figure. The recent lightweight clash between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia, on the other hand, reportedly generated over a million pay-per-view buys.
“The biggest fight he’s done for years and years and years is Haney-Lomachenko,” Hearn said of Arum. “It did 150,000 buys. Top Rank have no big fights. Let me ask you a question. What’s the last big fight that Top Rank done? Who can answer that question? It’s not even a big fight, it did 150,000 buys.”
Arum’s Top Rank, of course, co-promoted the latter two fights of the trilogy between heavyweights Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury, in 2020 and 2021.
Nevertheless, Hearn also needled Arum by insisting that the upcoming title fight between WBO 140-pound titlist Josh Taylor and Teofimo Lopez that Arum will promote was currently underperforming at the box office; the fight will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City on June 10.
“At the moment, we’re stuck on this, you’ve got Teofimo Lopez against Josh Taylor in the Theater at Madison Square Garden, and they can’t even sell that out. It’s got 4,000 seats. Top Rank are completely finished. Bob Arum calls me a joke, braggadocious. [It’s] dumb, over, end of story, ESPN contract gone.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.