Following last night’s card headlined by Hitchens vs Lemos, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn spent time talking to media members about a number of topics regarding prospective fights going forward, including Devin Haney vs Teofimo Lopez, Canelo vs Benavidez, Claressa Shields vs Alycia Baumgardner, and Subriel Matias vs Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz.
Check out Hearns thoughts on those fronts and his hopes that PBC will be willing to work with him to make some fights happen.
Hearn on if Devin Haney has reached out to him about a unification with Subriel Matias
“Devin, he just wants to fight for all the belts. So I know that he’ll fight all those guys, I know what he’s like. But I like the fact that he wants to chase the belts. I mean, poor Sandor Martin, everyone’s giving him stick but he’s a good fighter. But sometimes you have to go through these mandatory defenses, just financially not what you’re used to.”
On if it’s difficult to go from promoting big headlining cards for Canelo to doing shows at smaller venues for Hitchins and Pacheco
“No, because that’s all part of the journey. We just did Joshua vs Ngannou in Saudi Arabia, we’ve got Taylor vs Catterall coming up, sold 11k tickets for that. You’ve got Fury vs Usyk coming up that we’re involved with, got three fighters on the undercard, Haney vs Garcia in a couple of weeks.
“When you’re doing a show every week, not every show is going to be a blockbuster, but you’ve got to invest in the talent coming through. Diego (Pacheco) struggled a bit tonight. I thought he won but he’s got to improve if he’s going to dominate the division like we’re building him up to do.
“But I think, really, it’s not just about the bright lights, it’s about content. And I think tonight was a good show and I think it was a great main event.”
On the prospects of a Claressa Shields vs Alycia Baumgardner fight
“I think it’s a great fight. I mean, wow, who wouldn’t watch that? But it’s just size. I mean, look, Alycia is 130-pound undisputed champion and Claressa’s a 160-pounds, 168. She’s boxed at 154, she’d have to come down. I thought they discussed 147, she said 154, so I don’t know.
“I don’t think there’s many fights out there for Claressa Shields. I mean, who else is there for her to fight, really? So she’ll really like that fight but she’s going to have to — to make that fight fair she’s got to come down to an uncomfortable place because she’s huge in comparison to Alycia. She’s a much bigger woman.
“So you’ve got to make it uncomfortable. You can’t just make it a weight where she makes it easy and Alycia has to come in at 147 and eat to get there and she’s giving away 8 pounds, or 15-16 pounds on the night. So she’s got to decide the lowest she can go and Alycia’s got to decide if she’s up for the challenge.”
[Claressa Shields would later walk past Hearn and he would ask he the lowest weight she can do to make a Baumgardner fight, to which she responded 154. So, don’t hold your breath]
On the potential for Canelo vs Benavidez
“I mean, it’s not happening now but who knows what’s going to happen. I think Canelo’s move to give you his number, which was a big number, whether that’s his actual number or not, why not? He’s saying to the world ‘if you want it, you’ve got to pay for it.’ And there is big money for big fights out there at the moment, that’s too much in my opinion, but who knows how close they can get.
“But David was here tonight, looked like he was having a great time [smirks], and he’s a hell of a fighter.”
On his desire to make Subriel Matias vs Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz
“If you look at Canelo vs Mungia, it’s on Amazon, but it’s also on DAZN. I think there’s no reason — if Subriel Matias beats Liam Paro, which is a really good fight, I think we should make Pitbull against Matias in a unification fight with PBC. And I’m going to go to — I’ll go to Luis De Cubas because he’s my mate, hopefully he goes to Al Haymon and says ‘do you want to do that fight?’
“Because you’ve got the model in place, it can go on Prime, it can be distributed on DAZN as well, you’ve got Mexico against Puerto Rico in a unification — that’s a hell of a fight. So easy to make.”
On making Teofimo Lopez vs Devin Haney
“Yeah but Teofimo wants like $15M, $20M for those kind of fights.”
On there being hurdles to make unification fights at 140
“Only if someone wants to make the hurdle. What you’ve seen Ryan and Devin do, which is the same as what you saw Ryan and Tank do, is all the money in the pot and we agree to split, and then we split the money. So if Teofimo says to Devin Haney ‘50/50 unification, we keep the money’ the fight’s done…I would think the fight’s done.
“But you don’t work off guarantees in that respect, and that’s why Ryan made so much money in the Tank fight, because rather than taking a purse he took a split of the show. Now sometimes it don’t work out as good, but if it’s a big fight like Teo says it is, it’s your money…and I would do the same with Matias vs Pitbull, let the fighters split the money, we do some PBC fights, some Matchroom fights, maybe we fight each other. We’ve got loads of fights to make, I wonder if Mr. Haymon will go for it. It’d be great for boxing.”