Eddie Hearn says Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis is looking to unify titles at 147 but could find himself fighting Teofimo Lopez.
During this week’s WBC annual convention Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn spent some time talking to Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV about where things stand with a few of his fighters including Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, a potential fight against Teofimo Lopez, what Conor Benn is looking to do next, plans for Shakur Stevenson, Madrimov’s recent pull out, and more. Check out some excerpts of what he had to say below with the full video interview in the link at the top.
Hearn on the next move for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
“Obviously now we’re chasing those unification fights. Teofimo Lopez, you’ve seen the stuff on that. Bob Arum came out — we actually love that fight but (Boots) still wants to unify, so if we can’t unify he’s got a decision to fight Teofimo Lopez or if he does move up to ‘54 he will fight Vergil Ortiz straight away.
“The (Boots vs Teofimo) offer is do it on ESPN PPV and DAZN PPV…(Boots) really needs a big fight and he wants that big fight to be a unification. Now if we can’t get the unification, not ‘it’s tough’ but we then have to look at the other options and the other options could be Teofimo Lopez or Vergil Ortiz, but he’s just not moving to ‘54 yet. One thing I promise you is he will either be in a unification or a massive fight next. We have to.”
On whether a fight against Teofimo Lopez should trump a unification because it’s bigger economically
“For me, I love the fight. But for him it’s not really the money, he wants to unify the division. That’s the absolute target and goal. So when I went to him about Teofimo he went ‘ah, that’s a cool fight but you got to push for the champions.’ I said ‘I will but this is also on the table.’ So first priority, exhaust all options on the champions and then if not, I think that’s a great fight.”
On where he stands on negotiating with the other 147 lb champions
“We’re negotiating with Stanionis, we’re negotiating with Barrios, Brian Norman won’t take the fight. He wants a warm-up fight first. And that’s it, so pretty transparent. We’ve got to try to close Stanionis or Barrios, or we look at Teo. Or if he does want to move up he’s got to go straight into that Vergil Ortiz fight. We’re not going to go into any other fight because people like that fight and that’s a fight we really like as well.”
On Conor Benn also pushing for a fight with Barrios
“My conversations with Luis de Cubas right now, I’ve said ‘you got Conor Benn for this much, and you’ve got ‘Boots’ Ennis for this much.’ I think Barrios likes the Conor Benn fight ‘cause I think he thinks that it’s a winnable fight — I’m not sure I agree with him — but I think it’s a really good fight.
“For me, the financial rewards of Benn vs Eubank is much, much, much bigger than Barrios. But Conor, especially be out here this week (at the WBC convention) really likes the WBC world championship fight. So we’ll have to see.”
On where things stand in Benn vs Eubank negotiations
“In the air at the moment. I met with Ben Shalom yesterday, we’re negotiating that fight. Whether we get there or not, we’ll have to see.
“Conor’s either fighting Barrios or Eubank, that’s it. So 50/50 which way it goes.”
On Madrimov pulling out of his upcoming fight and the skepticism around it
“When we made the fight I spoke to Vadim Kornilov and he said ‘yes, we agree to everything. I’ve got to be honest with you, (Madrimov) has actually not been that well.’ And I’m thinking to myself if we pull out of this fight now I know what everyone’s going to say. Like we don’t want to pull out of the Bohachuk fight, we’re getting a lot of money for that fight and we’re getting a lot of money for the Ortiz fight. We’d rather do both.
“Then about three days later he went to the hospital and he got diagnosed with acute bronchitis and they said it’s just impossible for him to fight. So he had to pull out, and the fight with Vergil Ortiz remains.”
On Shakur Stevenson facing Floyd Schofield next, and whether it’s too soon for Schofield
“I agree with Oscar (De La Hoya), I think it’s probably come a little bit too early for (Schofield) but let the kid chase greatness. He’s a really good fighter, he’s getting a lot of money, and he’s getting a shot at greatness…if Schofield wins it changes his life forever, but if Schofield puts up a great performance his stock goes through the roof and he becomes a real name in the sport.”
On getting criticized for matching his prospects too tough after Marc Castro and Jalil Hackett lost in upsets
“When you’re matching a prospect, yeah, six rounder, six rounder, eight rounder — yeah, that’s like, you’ve got to at least not make it embarrassing. But once you start have four, five 10 round fights and we’ve invested hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in these fighters, I need to find out how good you are. And I’m not even throwing you in deep by the way, I’m just throwing you in a level that I need you cruise past, and you got beat.
“So that shows me you’re either not at the level, or you had a bad performance. And it’s not ‘thanks very much, have a nice life,’ it’s just we need to evaluate where you are because as a business we can’t just keep throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at you if you’re not going to go on and become world championship level…we just want to know you’re on the right path to become world level, and not everybody is good enough. And that’s the reality.”
Read the full article here
