Eddie Hearn explains his frustration with the IBF and ‘borderline circus act’ Team Norman

There has been plenty of criticism fired in the direction of the IBF this year, mostly for stripping unified champions Oleksandr Usyk and Canelo Alvarez for their failure to face mandatory challengers of limited commercial value.

Alvarez, instead of facing IBF No. 1 William Scull, has a more lucrative outing with Edgar Berlanga on September 14 in Las Vegas, while Usyk’s rematch with Tyson Fury has understandably taken precedence over a return with Daniel Dubois, whom Usyk had only recently defeated, and so Dubois was handed the IBF title he now defends at Wembley against Anthony Joshua on September 21.

However, promoter Eddie Hearn is at a loss with the sanctioning body when it comes to their welterweight champion, Jaron “Boots” Ennis as they want him now to face mandatory challenger Karen Chukhadzhian, the same fighter Ennis beat 12 rounds to zero some 18 months ago. In short, it’s a return that is meaningless to anyone outside of the Ukrainian and his team.

“You know what it is? If you’ve got the mandatory contender, you love the IBF rules,” Hearn explained. “And if you’ve got the champion, you can’t fucking stand them. We’ve got a fighter in Boots who’s a superstar in the making. He’s beaten this guy, Karen Chukhadzhian two fights ago, whatever it was. And he’s a good fighter the guy, and now, we’re trying to make some unification fights which we were very close to doing actually, and now we’ve got to fight this guy again.”

This week, negotiations between Ennis and the WBO champion Brian Norman played out publicly before fizzling out. 

The WBA champion is now Eimantas Stanionis, who has been upgraded to full champion following the departure of Terence Crawford from the weight class, which is how Norman and Ennis collected their belts. 

“But, you know, a lot of the time I respect the IBF, the way they actually don’t care or acknowledge commercial common sense in boxing,” Hearn added. “I could phone up [IBF president] Daryl [Peoples] and just be like, ‘Daryl, can we just have two minutes on this. Let’s just put this into perspective. You are putting a mandatory on us on a guy that we just beat two fights ago that no one [wants to see]. 

‘Sorry, he’s mandatory.

 ‘Why?’ 

“Anyway. Unfortunately, Brian Norman’s team – who are borderline circus act – are now coming back going, ‘Oh actually, we’ll take the offer.’ And it’s like, ‘Mate, they [the IBF]’ve called the purse bids. Under IBF rules, you can’t get an exception when they’ve already called the purse bid date. So now we’re going back to the IBF and saying, ‘Are you sure about this? Is there any way around it?’

“Because I actually think Brian Norman’s actually realized to himself, ‘Blimey, I’ve dropped the ball, I’m going to lose a fortune here.’ 

“It is frustrating, and I think the most frustrating thing about the IBF, and I love Daryl Peoples, I think he’s a great guy, they won’t just have a sensible common-sense conversation. And you know, when they had those issues many years ago, they’re petrified of going against their own rules, which I guess some might say is refreshing.”

Hearn is referring to the case that saw IBF founder Robert Lee imprisoned for two years, having been accused of making bribery part of the body’s operations. 

The IBF has this year been questioned heavily for stripping unified champions of their hard-earned titles. But Hearn said at least they’re sticking to their own rules.

“If you look at it, in the AJ situation, I’ve had loads of questions especially from people that don’t understand – [radio broadcaster] Simon Jordan’s a good example – actually [heavyweight contender] Fillip Hrgovic was waiting I think it was nearly two years for his mandatory. There was like two exceptions, that took place before and when the Dubois-Hrgovic fight was signed there was an agreement in place with the IBF that the winner would fight the winner of Usyk-Fury, so sometimes there is actually a historical procedure that means they have to make certain decisions, but I just feel like this [the Boots mandatory] is a certain decision where he’s already been mandatory two years ago and now he’s mandatory again without actually beating anybody [of note – Chukhadzhian has won three times since] and just a little bit of common sense would be nice.”

And while Philadelphian Ennis wants big fights, Hearn admitted he is concerned with the lack of name value and starpower currently atop of the 147 division.

“A little bit, yeah,” said Hearn. “I feel like Brian Norman, [Mario] Barrios, Stanionis, all these guys, are great, but I think but I think the move to 154 is inevitable. It’s funny how the division’s changed. One-forty-seven was hot for so many years, now, even those fights with Norman, Barrios and Stanionis, they’re not really superfights. You’d almost be better off moving up and looking at Spence or Crawford or even Fundora or Tszyu or Vergil Ortiz.

“There’s loads of fights at 154. But we really only wanted to move there once we’d unified at 147, so it’s going to be a big decision over the next four or five days.”