Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn: “We can’t wait to attack America in 2022”

Eddie Hearn, who heads up the boxing division of the U.K. sports promotion conglomerate Matchroom, the firm founded by his Hall of Fame father, has become a staple on the U.S. boxing scene. During one recent 18-day stretch, he was all over the map, promoting shows in Manchester, New Hampshire and faraway Las Vegas with a stop-over in New York City in-between.

His New York City promotion produced a big upset when George Kambosos Jr dethroned unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez. It was said that Hearn overpaid to boat the fight, but the outcome could not have worked out any better for him. If Teofimo had won, he would have returned to the arms of Top Rank for whom he would have been contractually obligated. But Kambosos was Hearn’s guy, as is Devin Haney (although technically a free agent), who conquered Jojo Diaz on the following Saturday, and presto, a huge fight fell right into Hearn’s lap: Kambosos vs. Haney for all the meaningful hardware in the 135-pound weight class.

Top Rank founder and president Bob Arum, who turned 90 this week (belated Happy Birthday to the Godfather) famously feuded with Don King, his bitter rival during the last decades of the 20^th century. Their constant war of words was great fodder for boxing writers.

Eddie Hearn isn’t as colorful as King who added a new word to the vocabulary when he accused Arum and others of trickeration, but Hearn has supplanted King as Arum’s arch-nemesis. Among the nicer thing that Arum has said about Hearn is that he doesn’t understand the U.S. market.

Recent developments, needless to say, suggest otherwise. Hearn now has one foot firmly planted on U. S. soil. And today he let the cat out of the bag in a story for the BBC in which he revealed that he has a big show in the works for Madison Square Garden in April.

Among the bouts that Hearn is lining-up for the April show is a match between four-belt lightweight champion Katie Taylor (14-0, 6 KOs) and Amanda Serrano (40-1-1, 30 KOs) who has captured titles in a bevy of weight classes from 118 to 140. Hearn has been in contact with Serrano’s co-promoters Jake Paul and Lou DiBella to make it happen.

It will be the biggest fight in women’s boxing history. That’s assuming, of course, that both get past their next hurdles. Taylor is pitted against Kazakhstan’s 14-1 Firuza Sharipova tomorrow in Liverpool, England. Serrano meets Spain’s 14-1 Mariam Gutierrez a week from tomorrow in Tampa.

“We’ve taken a strong foothold in the American market,” boasted Hearn in the conclusion to his BBC story. “These last two weeks have been huge for us with a growing profile and viewing figures. We can’t wait to attack America in 2022.”

It will be interesting to see how far he can take it.

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