By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t happy that that Jarrell Miller won’t be suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission after testing positive three times for banned substances/drugs for his fight against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on June 1.
The 315 pound Miller is no longer facing Joshua after the New York Commission denied him his boxing license due to the positive drug tests for PEDs. Hearn is looking for a replacement still for Joshua to fight, and he should have that done this week.
As for Miller, 30, since he doesn’t have a boxing license within the state of New York, the Commission can’t suspend him, says Hearn. Miller can look for another state in the U.S to apply for a boxing license. Whether Miller gets that license is another question. He might need to select a state Commission known for being lenient when he attempts to get licensed.
Hearn said this to Fighthub about Miller’s situation:
“The situation is, he doesn’t have a license with the New York State Athletic Commission, because it’s expired. So they can’t punish him, they can only refuse his license. He can go to any other commission and apply for a license. I don’t think he’ll get one. A year (suspended) is very, very, very kind to Jarrell Miller, in my opinion. And I’m all for forgiving, people make mistakes. This isn’t a mistake. At no point did he not know, at no point was he talked into it. This is cold-blooded cheating to do damage to Anthony Joshua.”
It’s highly doubtful that Miller will be able to get licensed right now. There’s too much publicity about his three failed tests for him to get licensed. Just how long Miller will need to wait before one of the Commissions does license him is the big question.
Hearn is the one that went to bat for Miller by signing him as Joshua’s opponent for June 1st despite the fact that “Big Baby” had tested positive for PEDs in the past when he was fighting in kickboxing. Hearn wanted Miller, and ended up biting him in the backside with his choice. Hearn could have selected someone else like Luis “King Kong” Ortiz, but he wanted Miller. Now he’s rushing around trying to find a replacement that the U.S boxing fans will care to see Joshua fighting. Some of the options that Hearn has floated have been dreadful choices, which suggest that he has a tin ear when it comes to knowing what American boxing fans want to see.
“The thing that cuts me the deepest is, Anthony Joshua is not just a client of mine, he’s a friend of mine,” Hearn said about Miller. “And what (Miller) has done, he has tried to gain a physical edge to hurt him in the ring. For me, that is unacceptable. And to come out after the first test and swear blind that you’ve never touched anything, this is a sabotage.”
The next time Hearn picks an opponent for Joshua, he needs to choose them not based on how good of a talker they are, but rather on what they’ve done inside the ring. Miller had never beaten anyone good for him to be considered worthy of a world title fight. Hearn chose him based on his ability to talk, his unbeaten record filled with fluff opponents, and he thought that would be enough to draw in the U.S boxing fans. It was all superficial. Now he’s complaining. ‘All that glitters isn’t gold,’ as the saying goes.
What’s done is done. Hearn picked the wrong guy in Miller despite many boxing fans saying that he was picking another easy mark for Joshua, and now it’s blown up in his face. Hearn needs to do a better job of selecting opponents for Joshua.
