Through its pursuit of Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez, and acquisition of Conor Benn, Zuffa Boxing’s movements suggest they could be trying to take Matchroom out, according to DAZN commentator Chris Mannix, who put this thesis to Eddie Hearn in a recent interview with the Matchroom boss.
It all began with Zuffa’s apparent offer to Rodriguez, one of boxing’s best pound-for-pound fighters. Exercising its matching rights, Matchroom retained ‘Bam’ in its roster. However, it was powerless to prevent Benn from joining Zuffa’s burgeoning stable, with Hearn, at the time, lamenting a grave “mistake” of his contributing to Dana White’s gain.
But does Zuffa’s determination to acquire Matchroom’s top talent indicate it is trying to take the long-standing sports promoter out of boxing?
“It’s unbelievably flattering,” Hearn said, in response to Mannix’s question.
“I think they recognize we are the best out there. The way we run our business, and the group as a whole. We’re up for the challenge,” he said. “The beauty and advantage we have is we’re boxing people. We understand the sport, fanbase, and we speak to the audience. We are the audience as we are fans ourselves.
“They think boxing needs to be changed, and have complete control of the sport, which even I know was never possible for me, and us, because boxing doesn’t work like that.”
“We’re trying to move in the other direction of Zuffa,” Hearn continued. “We’re trying to make the best fights for the fans. We’re trying to keep the tradition of this great sport. We’re trying to make people understand the legacy of this sport — that belts are important, champions do fight champions, and people, athlete, talent need to be respected, which you don’t see in other parts of their business.”
Hinting at UFC boss Dana White, prominent TKO executive Nick Khan, and the political connections the former has, which could help smooth their proposed Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, Hearn called the Zuffa Boxing brass “powerful people.”
He said: “It’ll be a good, clean fight – from our side. I don’t think this is bad for boxing. Some of the things they do are.”
“We’ve signed a new, five-year deal for DAZN, a minimum of 150 shows over 5 years. We’re all good.”
Hearn’s offering on DAZN continues Saturday with a headline fight between Emanuel Naverrete and Eduardo Nunez.