Hearn to make announcement on Monday for his three May shows

By Boxing News - 03/27/2020 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid:  Eddie Hearn says he’ll be making an announcement this Monday for his May 2, May 9 and May 23 shows involving Dillian Whyte vs. Alexander Povetkin, Lee Selby vs. George Kambosos Jr. and Oleksander Usyk vs. Dereck Chisora.

All three of those shows are expected to be postponed. On Monday, Hearn will likely give alternative backup dates for some if not all of those three shows.

Hearn says the earliest he expects boxing to return is in June, and, of course, that’s just a guess on his part. Boxing could be on lockdown for longer. The coronavirus is now seemingly in control of things, dictating when boxing will resume.

The Matchroom shows in May to be postponed:

  • Dillian Whyte vs. Alexander Povetkin – May 2
  • Lee Selby vs. George Kambosos Jr. – May 9
  • Oleksander Usyk vs. Dereck Chisora  – May 23

“A lot,” said Hearn when asked on social media how the COVID 19 virus has effected Matchroom business. “We had March 28 [David Avanesyan vs. Josh Kelly] at the O2, it’s been canceled. April 4th in Newcastle has now been moved to June 27th. We’ll make an announcement on Monday about Dillian Whyte and the Cardiff show in May and Chisora-Usyk on May 23.

“We don’t know long this is going to last. We know the earliest boxing is going to start again is June. That’s why the shows in May we have to look at and come up with alternatives dates. We just got to keep being creative. Over the next couple of weeks, it’s a total lockdown, isn’t it? No one is going to doing anything,” said Hearn.

Image: Hearn to make announcement on Monday for his three May shows

Hearn needs to combine the postponed fights into one card

One thing Hearn can do for when boxing does resume is to bunch some of these fight cards up into one card. Hearn probably won’t do it, but it would make sense for him to COMBINE the Whyte vs. Povetkin, Chisora vs. Usyk and Selby vs. Kambosos Jr. one big card.

Chisora-Usyk and Selby-Kambosos Jr. are fights that arguably shouldn’t be main event level fights anyway because none of these guys are world champions, and there’s a good chance that none of them will at this point.

Former unified cruiserweight champion Usyk is clearly too small to beat heavyweight world champions Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury. It’s great that Usyk has moved up to heavyweight and been given the WBO mandatory without earning it, but the fact is he’s too short, too weak and too limited to beat Joshua or Fury.

As for Chisora, he’s more of a gatekeeper level heavyweight, and he clearly not destined to win a world title. The fact that Chisora is a headliner in the UK is a real head-scratcher because he likely wouldn’t if he was from the U.S.

Does Selby vs. Kamboso Jr. needs their own card?

Selby, 33, already had his moment in the sun in holding down the IBF featherweight title from 2015 to 2018. He never fought anyone that you can call a good fighter during his three years as the IBF 126-lb champion, and when he finally did face a quality fighter in Josh Warrington in 2018, he promptly lost.

Selby used to be a good belt holder, but he never took on any of the elite level featherweight during his career. Whether that was by design or by accident is unknown, but the fact is, Selby didn’t fight the dangerous guys at 126.

Image: Hearn to make announcement on Monday for his three May shows

How would Selby have done if he’d fought these featherweights?

  • Oscar Valdez
  • Shakur Stevenson
  • Gary Russell Jr.
  • Leo Santa Cruz
  • Vasily Lomachenko
  • Joseph Diaz Jr

Selby is now fighting at lightweight, and he looks very average and utterly beatable. At 135, Selby isn’t going anywhere, which is why it seems odd that he was scheduled to headline his own card against. Selby’s opponent Kambosos Jr (18-0, 10 KOs) has been fighting largely unknowns since he turned professional in 2013.

The only notable name on the Australian Kamboso’s resume is 36-year-old former IBF lightweight champion Mickey Bey (23-3-1, 11 KOs), who he struggled to beat by a 10 round split decision last December at Madison Square Garden in New York. At this point in Bey’s career, he isn’t the same fighter that briefly held the IBF 135-lb title from 2014 to 2015.

Hearn predicts big fights to happen in future

“One thing I do think is going to happen in boxing is this is going to cause a lot of bigger fights to happen quicker because people are going to be inactive by the time they fight again, and I think people are going to want to jockey for position and jump into big fights quicker. That’s one of my opinions.

“I like Kell Brook against Liam Smith, and that’s an example of fights you might see happen in the back end of the summer or in early autumn because of this delay. Callum Johnson was due to fight on May the 2nd against Mikhalkin for the European title. Again, that’s another situation we might end up seeing. Buatsi against Callum Johnson in the back end of this year as well,” said Hearn.

Brook vs. Smith needs to take place already. If nothing else, one of these guys need to be weeded out for the division. At 33, Brook isn’t fighting enough, and he’s watching his career go down the drain through inactivity. It’s sad that Brook is still talking of wanting to fight Amir Khan, and it seems like it hasn’t dawned on him that he’ll never get that fight.

Image: Hearn to make announcement on Monday for his three May shows

Kell should move up to 160

Brook needs to take risks with what’s left of his career by moving up to middleweight to try and get a fight against one of the champions. If Brook could get a fight against Canelo Alvarez, he could retire off the money and take it easy with his golden parachute.

Yeah, Brook’s career took a nosedive after his loss to middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin in September 2016, but he made a lot of money from that fight. You can argue that the beginning of the end of Brook’s career came after he got the big payday against GGG rather than from the eye injuries he suffered in that fight and his subsequent clash against Errol Spence Jr.

As far as Liam Smith goes, it’s pretty self-evident that he doesn’t have the talent to win another world title. Like Selby, Liam was a belt-holder, and he didn’t fight anyone good to win the title or during his short one-year reign as the WBO 154-lb champion from 2015 to 2016.

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