The Matchroom promoter shares his perspective on the recent impasse between Canelo and Turki Alalshikh.
In this video interview, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn talks about his position between Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, who’s essentially been financing the biggest fights in boxing lately, and Mexican star Canelo Alvarez, who wasn’t interested in pursuing negotiations with Alalshikh at the present moment.
While there’s clearly some tensions between the sides, Hearn doesn’t think it’s something that can’t be eventually overcome, and tries to explain the difference in mindsets between the two individuals.
On the beef between Canelo and Turki Alashikh
“It’s difficult because obviously I’m very fond of both. I think, firstly, His Excellency has one thing on his mind: make the biggest fights that can be made in boxing. And I think he probably shares a lot of the frustration of boxing fans over the last few years, and I think what he’s bringing to the sport is extremely refreshing because he has no interest in poor fights.
“He just wants to make the biggest fights that can be made. So in His Excellency’s mind, the fights that he wants to see are Canelo Alvarez against Terence Crawford and Canelo Alvarez against David Benavidez.
“He reached out to me, His Excellency, the night of the first press conference in New York and he said to me ‘I want to make Canelo vs Crawford, go and speak to Saul, let’s make this fight.’ I said ‘okay’ and I reached out to Saul and said ‘His Excellency wants to make this fight, I think you should go to see him in Los Angeles, he’s there,’ and Saul just said ‘look, I’m focused on this fight, I won’t talk about another fight ‘til after this fight.
“And I think His Excellency probably can’t understand the — I think it’s a frustration of ‘no, let’s make the fight, come on.’ You have to understand the way he operates and the way they do business is incredible. It’s ‘this is what we want to do, this is massive, let’s get it done.’ And for one reason or the other Canelo didn’t want to have those conversations and then it’s the frustration of ‘why not, we’re here, we can make the deal now.’…you come to the hotel now, and we will get a deal done tonight.
“It’s an amazing way to operate and it’s so refreshing for boxing but it wasn’t the way Canelo wanted to do that deal, he wanted to wait until after the Berlanga fight which frustratingly for His Excellency kills the Crawford fight for February, because he wants to get that fight made now.”
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