Eddie Hearn – This weekend, British promoter Eddie Hearn has booked the O2 Arena in London for an event headlined by a heavyweight world title fight between Brit Anthony Joshua (16-0) and American Dominic Breazeale (17-0).

Picture: Eddie Hearn is a second generation promoter. Here he is pictured with father, Barry.

Hearn, already the most prolific promoter in England, is eager to promote Joshua all over the world, as he revealed on a Monday conference call for Showtime. Hearn accompanied Joshua on the call to hype this weekend’s fight, and in response to a question from the media, Joshua stated he would love to fight in the United States. Hearn elaborated that Joshua has already been fielding offers from around the world, including some far off locations such as China and The United Arab Emirates, and that he fully expected to have Joshua fight stateside sometime in 2017.

Joshua and Hearn were eventually asked about the recently cancelled Deontay Wilder versus Alexander Povetkin heavyweight title bout and about PED use in boxing in general and, as expected, both men came out strongly against their use. The two gave details on the drug testing system used by the British Boxing Board of Control, endorsing it as the most advanced system anywhere.

Anthony Joshua is subject to year round random drug testing by the BBBofC. He has signed up for a program that asks him to report his daily whereabouts, including what gym he is training at and where he is sleeping, and agents can appear at any time to request a urine sample. According to Hearn, agents recently showed up at 10 o’clock at night to test Joshua.

As for testing on the night of the fight, Hearn stated that it was “useless.” Random testing, he added, “is the only way to eradicate cheating in the sport.”

Listen to the entire conference call at The Boxing Channel.

“Cheating has become advanced, and when you have as much money at stake as there is in boxing you will always find a bad soul…the UK doping system is probably the only system world wide where we have complete faith that all championship fighters over here have been randomly tested throughout camp,” Hearn elaborated.

“The problem with boxing in America is there is no universal commission; all the commissions have different policies. The BBBofC has complete control as an independent agency and they enforce a system where fighters are randomly tested. In my opinion, a system similar to what exists in England needs to be employed in the United States universally around the commissions, to catch people,” continued Hearn.

In the United States only certain commissions, such as the Nevada State Commission and the bodies that govern New York, California, New Jersey and perhaps one or two other states have shows big enough to generate the funds necessary for this type of system. Could the money generated by the big commissions go to fund a national system of random testing in the United States?

Check out The Boxing Channel video featuring former 2 division world champion and analyst extraordinaire Paulie Malignaggi as he breaks down then heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua. (from Dec. 2015)

Eddie Hearn