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Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn has fired back at his promotional rival, Top Rank’s CEO Bob Arum, over some recent statements with respect to their inability to finalize the heavyweight unification between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
The two sides were close to an agreement for a date of August 14 in Saudi Arabia, but last month everything fell apart.
An arbitrator ordered Fury to honor an immediate rematch clause due to Deontay Wilder – with their trilogy fight taking place on July 24 in Las Vegas.
Arum blamed Hearn for the mishap – claiming the British promoter made things complicated – which in turn prevented the deal from being finalized before the arbitration decision.
“Eddie screwed everything up. The Saudis were happy to pay a tremendous site fee. Eddie got greedy, ‘Pay a bigger amount, take the TV.’ It dragged on for weeks. I believe if it’d just been a site fee we’d have announced and the arbitrator would’ve given Wilder damages,” Arum told BoxingScene.com and other reporters.
Hearn fired back – disputing Arum’s take on what transpired.
“This is a guy, he is unquestionably the greediest man I have ever met in my life, Bob Arum. But it’s all very strange, just to put it into perspective; we asked for a deal from Saudi, with the approval of all the parties of what they wanted,” Hearn told IFL TV.
“Are you happy to accept this number? ‘Yes, go and ask them for that Eddie’. I went and asked them for that, they said yes. There was no going back for more money or give them TV, it was all agreed between the parties. He is talking absolute sh!t.
“In fact, he needs to go. What was it Naz said? You just need to go, just finish, just finish.”
Hearn is referencing a 2018 interview from Naseem Hamed, who urged Chris Eubank Jr. to retire after he lost a decision to George Groves in the World Boxing Super Series.