Arum: DAZN Should Get Rid Of Hearn; Doesn't Belong Here
LAS VEGAS â Bob Arum claims he couldnât care less about what Eddie Hearn says about the Tyson Fury-Otto Wallin show Arumâs company is promoting this week.
Hearn said at one point this week that Arumâs Top Rank Inc. had sold only 1,500 tickets for a card thatâll be held Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, which can accommodate slightly more than 20,000 fans for boxing. Arum contends Hearn is incorrect, and that the British promoter should spend more time pumping up his own companyâs card Friday night in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Matchroom Boxingâs show at The Theater will feature undefeated lightweight contender Devin Haney versus Zaur Abdullaev in the main event for the WBCâs interim 135-pound championship. DAZN, the emerging streaming service with which Hearnâs company has a contract to provide dozens of shows per year, will stream the Haney-Abdullaev card (7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT).
The Fury-Wallin show will be streamed by ESPN+ on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT) because Top Rank has an exclusive content deal with ESPN. If Hearn wants to continue trashing Top Rankâs card because Englandâs Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) is a massive favorite over the unbeaten but unknown Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs, 1 NC), thatâs fine by Arum.
âIâm an experienced promoter and I would never, ever refer to any fight that Hearn is putting on, because Iâm not gonna publicize another promoterâs fights,â Arum told BoxingScene.com. âAll he does is talk about my fights. You know, âUnwatchable, Tyson Fury-Wallin.â Well, if he said that after the fight, then maybe thatâs not so good for me because I canât do any more business, right? But if he says it before, hey, say it a few times. Heâs publicizing my fight.â
The 87-year-old Arum, an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee who has been involved in the sport for parts of six decades, then blasted Englandâs Hearn for what Arum considers a poor track record of promoting cards in the United States since the launch of Matchroom Boxing USA late in 2017.
âEddie Hearn doesnât belong in the United States, promoting fights,â Arum said. âHe doesnât understand this market. He doesnât know what heâs doing. All he can do is write checks, and stupid checks. Look what he paid me for [Jose] Ramirez to go over for one fight to DAZN and knock out [Maurice] Hooker. I mean, thatâs madness, total madness. And that didnât do any kind of numbers. The only traction that theyâve had on this DAZN, in the United States, is Canelo. Canelo has done extraordinarily well for them, extraordinarily well. But heâs the only one.
âAnd really, they would be better off, in my opinion, if they got rid of Hearn and turned over a lot of the DAZN business to Oscar [De La Hoya], whose fights have been out-performing Eddieâs on DAZN, and get guys like [Lou] DiBella involved. I mean, Eddie Hearn doesnât belong here â he doesnât. He says the wrong thing. He does the wrong thing. You know, youâre promoting Devin Haney in Madison Square Garden. Talk about f*cking Haney. There are plenty of things to say about Haney. He may be a great fighter. We donât know yet, but so far, so good.â
Hearn, 40, is the son of Barry Hearn, who began promoting boxing in England in 1987.
Under the younger Hearnâs direction, the company has helped build former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua into a superstar in the United Kingdom. Matchroom also works with Demetrius Andrade, Kell Brook, Tevin Farmer, Gennadiy Golovkin, Haney, Hooker, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders, Callum Smith, Katie Taylor, Oleksandr Usyk, Jessie Vargas and Dillian Whyte, among others.
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