Oscar De La Hoya took to social media to taunt promoter Eddie Hearn over his flagship fighter Anthony Joshua’s knockout loss to Daniel Dubois last weekend. De La Hoya said that fighters who sign with Hearn’s Matchroom are guaranteed to lose or get injured.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
The former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) has been a big winner for Hearn since he signed him over a decade ago and has brought in a lot of money for his company. AJ is getting older, and the timing was bad for him to challenge the knockout artist Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs).
In hindsight, Hearn should have waited until Joshua fought Tyson Fury before making the fight with Dubois. All Joshua had to do was fight one more weak opponent like the four previous tomato cans while waiting for the Fury to face Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch on December 21st.
Hearn would probably recognize now that he made a mistake by matching Joshua against IBF heavyweight champion Dubois. He probably thought Dubois would fall apart under the hard punches from Dubois as he had in his losses to Usyk and Joe Joyce. However, those were fights in which Dubois was very much in them and landed a lot of huge bombs that would knock out both fighters.
DDD was robbed in his title fight against Usyk last year in Poland after knocking him down with a body shot in the fifth round, which the referee mistakenly ruled as a low blow. That should have been a knockout win for Dubois.
“Anthony Joshua was knocked out in the fifth round by Dubois. It was actually an amazing and entertaining fight, and I like AJ. However, this was another huge L for Eddie Hearn, who is literally 0-11 to Frank Warren this year,” said Oscar De La Hoya during today’s Clapback Thursdays edition.
It was an entertaining fight between Joshua and Dubois last weekend. It was one that AJ came close to winning in the fifth round when he hurt Dubois, but he messed up by throwing an uppercut while going for the kill. Joshua’s trainer had told him to throw an uppercut, and that was useless instructions.
“This continues the Matchroom curse, meaning if you sign with Matchroom, you’re either guaranteed to lose or get injured,” De La Hoya continued.
“To make matters worse, Eddie Hearn faced off with his old buddy Devin Haney at the crowd at Wembley. Eddie, you can’t build a fighter to save your life. Anthony Joshua had the world at his fingertips, and you found a way to fumble his career.”
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