By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn can forget all about heavyweight Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) fighting on the undercard of the Kell Brook vs. Diego Chaves fight card on October 24th on Sky Box Office.
Earlier today, Fury had a good laugh in the process of turning down Hearn’s offer of fighting in an eight rounder on the Brook-Chaves card. Fury said there is no way that he can take the offer, because he’s still under contract for the Wladimir Klitschko fight, and he has to wait until Wladimir’s injured left calf heals before he can fight. Fury can’t take any fights in between that fight.
Fury and Klitschko were supposed to be fighting on the same October 24th Sky Box Office card as the Diego Chaves vs. Kell Brook fight. However, Wladimir’s injury will now prevent him from fighting Fury on that date.
Fury says that Hearn must think he’s a naïve person to believe that he would agree to fight in an eight rounder on the Brook-Chaves fight card on October 24th. Fury then pointed out that he’s the No.1 mandatory challenger to Wladimir, and he doesn’t need to be fighting eight round fights.
As for Hearn’s October 24th card, Fury says that Hearn is going to need to take that off of Sky Box Office because without him and Klitschko fighting on the Sky Box Office on that date, Hearn doesn’t have a good enough card to make it worthy of Sky Box Office. Fury says he’s never even heard of Brook’s opponent Diego Chaves before, and he simply doesn’t see it as a fight that is good enough to have that as a pay-per-view fight.
“I saw Eddie Hearn. I call him Eddie ‘The [expletive]’ Hearn. He put out a tweet saying he wants me on the undercard [on October 24th] in an eight rounder,” Fury said on Periscope. “What does he think I am? Eddie, have a day off. I’m the number one mandatory in the world, and he wants to put me in an eight rounder against some random guy. He thinks I was born last week. I’m going to have to wait for Wlad. I’m contracted in. I can’t take no fights in between. I don’t know how Kell Brook’s PPV is going to go off against a guy [Diego Chaves] that no one even knows his name or who he’s fighting. It can’t be pay-per-view,” Fury said.
I agree with Fury. I think Hearn has little choice but to take his Brook vs. Chaves card off of Sky Box Office, and instead put it on regular Sky. There aren’t any good fights on the card that will interest the boxing public.
Fury has WBA interim middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. vs. TBA and former two division world champion Ricky Burns vs. TBA. Those are the only well-known fighters on the card and it looks like they’re going to be matched against likely last minute fodder opponents rather than quality guys. We’re a month out from October 24th right now.
There’s no way Hearn is going to be able to find two high quality fighters for Eubank Jr. and Burns to fight on that. If Sky is agreeable to letting Hearn put his Brook-Chaves card on Sky Box Office on October 24th, then that’s on them.
I know if I was one of the suits at Sky, I would tell Hearn that it’s a ‘no go’ for his Brook vs. Chaves card. I’d tell him that the card can be televised on Sky Box Office only if he adds Anthony Joshua to the card and has him fight someone good like Kubrat Pulev, Bryant Jennings, Carlos Takam or Alexander Povetkin.
It might be painful for Hearn to take the Brook-Chaves fight card off the Sky Box Office PPV fight card on October 24th, but I think that’s what Hearn needs to do. It’s better for him to do that then to ask the British boxing public to pay to see a card that is arguably not pay-per-view worthy. I see the Brook-Chaves fight as a good decent free fight worthy of being on regular Sky, but it’s definitely not PPV worthy.
Comments are closed.