Eddie has signed former unified lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. (21-3, 10 KOs) to a co-promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing.
It’s unclear how many fights Hearn has signed the 31-year-old Kambosos Jr. to, but it’s likely two or three at best. He wants to match the Aussie Kambosos against IBF light Welterweight champion Liam Paro, who is victorious in his title defense on December 7th against Richardson Hitchins.
Paro is also from Australia, and a fight between him and Kambosos would bring in good PPV numbers in that country. However, it wouldn’t sell in the UK or the U.S., so hopefully, that’s not something that plays out.
Kambosos has lost three out of his last four fights since 2022. In his case, it’s not a shot fighter, far from it. It’s more a situation of him facing better fighters, who exposed him to be a fringe-level fighter.
Kambosos is a classic example of a one-hit wonder, a fighter who pulled off an upset over Teofimo Lopez in 2021, and it’s been all downhill since. He was never supposed to beat Teofimo, but he caught him coming off a long layoff, under-motivated, and unprepared for a hungry fighter. If there had been a rematch, Teofimo would probably win.
Initially, it was thought that Hearn would feed Kambosos a tomato can for his first fight with Matchroom and then look to match him against Teofimo in a rematch or use him for Devin Haney to get the rust out in a trilogy. But with Hearn saying he wants Kambosos against Liam Paro, that could mean that he signed him to a one or two-fight deal. It wouldn’t make sense for Hearn to sign Kambosos Jr to a three-fight contract because he would have to protect him to keep him from losing repeatedly.
Kambosos was knocked out in the 11th round in his last fight by Vasily Lomachenko on May 12th. Before that, he won a highly controversial 12-round majority decision over Maxi Hughes on July 22nd, 2023. Many fans felt Hughes should have won that fight because he dominated Kambosos.
“The 140lbs division is littered with big names and great potential clashes, and adding George to that mix only raises the levels – with a potential fight against Liam Paro a real mouth-watering prospect, if Liam can get the win in a great fight with Richardson on December 7,” said Eddie Hearn.
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