Eddie Hearn says Dmitry Bivol couldn’t go into a title defense against David Benavidez given his contract with Artur Beterbiev.
Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn takes some time to talk to Fight Hub about this weekend’s welterweight title unification Between Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis, an upcoming trilogy match between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, and Dmitry Bivol having his WBC title taken from him for not going straight into a fight against David Benavidez. Check out some of what Hearn had to say below.
Hearn on whether Boots vs Stanionis is a 50/50 fight
“If you’re looking at the Chukhadzhian fight then it’s giving people hope. And although Tom Brown says ‘we’ve been chasing this fight,’ we never received a phone call before for Stanionis to fight Boots. We did receive that phone call after the Chukhadzhian fight and I think it gave people a lot of confidence.
“If Boots performs like he did against Chukhadzhian it’s a very, very dangerous fight. If he performs to the ability that we believe and know he has, he looks absolutely sensational and announces himself as a pound-for-pound star of the sport. But I love what Stanionis brings.
“Everybody who knows boxing knows this is not just maybe a 50/50, this is probably the best fight of the year so far and I think you’ll get a tremendous matchup.”
On the exchange between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano at their latest presser
“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. No one talks about the fact that we had to give up Amanda Serrano walking second in certain situations, at the press conference, the fight, the weigh in, when Katie Taylor is the champion. She’s the undisputed champion. We had to come down to 136 lbs for this fight, which is not a problem by the way, but we were still very cordial in the negotiations, especially when its 2-nil, especially when Katie Taylor is a champion.
“But more importantly…the WBC do not allow three minute rounds and if you fight a three minute round contest you will be stripped of your title. We ain’t getting stripped, we’re undisputed. That’s the dream of Katie Taylor.”
On Bivol’s WBC title being vacated for not fighting David Benavidez, who was elevated in his place
“Very straightforward. We have a contract and more importantly we gave our word that we will fight Beterbiev against. [Alalshikh] has done a tremendous job for Dmitry Bivol, we’ve had four fights in The Kingdom. When we lost a very close fight against Artur Beterbiev [Alalshikh] went out and made the rematch when he didn’t have to. And part of that deal was if we win there will be a third fight for Artur Beterbiev. So I was very surprised at the speed of the order.
“Don’t forget, Dmitry Bivol had only just won the WBC title. You always get grace as a champion. It wasn’t like this was ordered way back and Benavidez has been waiting, he only just beat Morrell and it’s like, right — boom — negotiations — boom — purse bid — boom — telling people the public offer.
“When has there ever been a time where someone from the organization is publicly telling about the offer Dmitry Bivol would receive. It’s quite bizarre, actually. And it’s like they’re trying to put pressure on him to take the [Benavidez] fight. The money’s nowhere near the money that he’s going to make to fight Beterbiev but it doesn’t matter if the offer was $20M, we have a contract and we always have our word which is our bond which we don’t ever go against.”
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