A year ago, Eddie Hearn was busy promoting the biggest show his company has done on American soil.
Amid this global pandemic, the British promoter can’t even envision when it’ll be safe to return to New York to stage another boxing event. As of Tuesday morning, more than 10,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in New York City, where nearly 137,000 cases had been documented overall.
Hearn detailed during a recent episode of SiriusXM’s “Ak And Barak Show” why Matchroom Boxing USA likely will promote shows in other states before his company comes back to New York, where it has an office in Manhattan. Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Madison Square Garden in Manhattan are two venues that most regularly hold boxing shows in the U.S., but this pandemic has devastated New York more than any American city.
“In America, there’s gonna be states that are safer to stage fights in than others,” Hearn said. “Like you talked about earlier, New York right now, I mean, no one’s gonna be comfortable doing live events in New York for months and months and months, maybe years. You know? But there may be a state where it hasn’t been largely affected, or you can create that sterile environment, with testing, with social distancing. Because that’s how I think it’s gonna go.
“I think we’re gonna have to create some kind of fight camp, where we’re gonna have a month or so of basically being in our own lockdown, you know, where everyone’s gonna be tested – the crews, you know, the fighters, the trainers, the teams, and everybody in there we know is safe. But again, it’s all finger-in-the-air stuff right now for everybody, even the experts, because there is the downside of it might not be June or July. It might not even be October or November.”
Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing USA produced its most notable show in the United States last June 1. That’s when American Andy Ruiz Jr. upset England’s Anthony Joshua by seventh-round technical knockout to win the IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO heavyweight titles at a sold-out Madison Square Garden.
Matchroom Boxing USA also has promoted U.S. cards in Chicago, Frisco, Texas, Los Angeles, Miami, Oxon Hill, Maryland, Phoenix, Providence, Rhode Island, Uniondale, New York, Verona, New York, and Wichita, Kansas. The company’s April 17 show, which was supposed to be held at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, was postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus crisis.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.