By Tim Royner: Eddie Hearn wishes he could ink Ryan Garcia, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, and Tyson Fury to his Matchroom Boxing stable to beef it up. The ingenious British promoter Hearn had a chance to sign the overweight former unified heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 K.O.s) to his promotional company in 2017. Still, he wouldn’t give him the green light to take on a few soft jobs in making his comeback.
Had Hearn signed Fury, the chances are high that we wouldn’t have seen him face WBC heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder. There was already so much bad blood between Deontay and Hearn by 2018 that the chances of a Wilder-Fury contest would have been slim to none. Hearn couldn’t even put together a fight between Dillian ‘The Bodysnatcher’ Whyte and Deontay.
Hearn wishes he’d signed Fury
When it comes to Hearn, his ham-handed approach to putting together fights between his Matchroom fighters and Deontay has been fruitless.
“If I could sign three fighters right now in the world – I would sign Tyson Fury, I would sign Ryan Garcia, and I would sign Gervonta Davis,” said Hearn to Sky Sports Boxing.
Adding Ryan and Tank to his stable would ensure that Matchroom had a couple of pawns that would appeal to the U.S. boxing public for many years to come. While Fury is a good fighter, he’s still mostly popular in the U.K., and it’s open for debate whether the American fans will ever rally behind him the way they do with Ryan and Tank.
Lightweight Tank Davis (23-0, 22 K.O.s) and Ryan Garcia (20-0, 17 K.O.s) haven’t struck gold yet, but there’s a possibility that the two will be future huge money earners in the sport. Further, they both would seem to have a lot more time left in their careers than the 6’9″ Fury.
That’s not a knock on the 31-year-old Fury, but history has shown us that he burns out after picking up big wins. Even if Fury kept it together mentally, he’s not someone that will be around for more than five or six rounds before his career goes belly up. It could even faster if Deontay crushes him in their trilogy match or if Joshua does the work against him in 2021.
Fury could have been signed by Hearn
“I mean you could say, Tyson Fury,” said Hearn when asked who he wished he’d signed. “And I had a chance to sign him. I looked at him, and I thought, ‘You ain’t ever going to come back anyway, look at the size of you,’ but he surprised everybody and how wrong I was
“I didn’t want to give him the fights that he wanted to take at the time, because I thought it was just too much money and the fights weren’t good enough,” said Hearn in recalling how he miscalculated Tyson’s ability to take the weight off, and come roaring back with his career.
Three years ago, in 2017, Fury weighed over 300 pounds, and Hearn had no way of knowing at the time that he would be able to trim off the cargo to return to the form that he showed in beating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015.
From Hearn’s perspective, he did what a lot of other promoters likely would have in dismissing the potential for Fury to be able to get back to where he was previously. When Fury did come back in 2018, he picked up wins over Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta before fighting Deontay to a 12 round draw at the end of the year.
Hearn not signing Fury won’t be a big deal if he loses to Joshua or Wilder shortly. Right now, Hearn looks terrible that he didn’t sign Fury, but that could change if he turns out to be a one-hit-wonder.
