Leonard Ellerbe blasts Eddie Hearn over wanting to sign Tank Davis, and messing up Joshua’s career

By Boxing News - 06/01/2022 - Comments

By Robert Segal: Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe was nearly apoplectic on Wednesday when asked about Eddie Hearn saying he wants to sign Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis to his Matchroom Boxing stable.

Ellerbe looked like he was going to have a fit when Hearn was casually brought up by Brian Custer in regards to him wanting to sign the superstar Tank Davis (27-0, 25 KOs).

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Hearn said he’d be willing to overpay the former three-division world champion Tank just to get him with his promotional company.

Tank had told the media for weeks recently that his contract with Mayweather Promotions would be up with his fight last Saturday night against Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero.

So naturally, Hearn made it clear that he wants to sign Tank, and if he said he should absolutely look around for the best deal possible.

Obviously, with Tank Davis being the only star in Mayweather Promotions’ stable, you can understand why Ellerbe got all worked up over Hearn wanting to ink him.

Without Tank, Mayweather Promotions has virtually no one. It’s unclear why Mayweather hasn’t used his vast fortune to sign all the big names because he’s got the money to sign virtually anyone, but he hasn’t done for some reason.

Speaking to Brian’s Last Stand Podcast, Ellerbe went on a total rant about Hearn, saying how he’s blown huge money on fighters, and wrecked Anthony Joshua’s career by matching him against Andy Ruiz jr.

Brian Custer: “Eddie Hearn said, ‘I’m open to signing Tank Davis, and I’ll overpay him just to get under Leonard Ellerbe’s skin.'”

Leonard Ellerbe: “Well, it’s been no secret what my opinion is of him. I think he’s the biggest f*** clown of all of boxing, and I have a very good reason why I say that.

“Here’s a guy that has openly told the entire world that he was coming to America to take over boxing. Okay, let’s leave that right there. He’s coming to America to take over boxing, and he had a budget of over a billion dollars.

“I repeat, a billion dollars, and what he has done is come over to the United States and didn’t know the first thing about the marketplace at all. Excuse me for cursing again, and he’s f**** off over a billion dollars.

“There’s nothing to show for it. I am happy, though, for the fighters who got paid a lot of money. I’m very happy about that, but as far as a businessman, just think about this for a second.

“If he was an NBA general manager and he was given a budget because obviously everyone has a salary cap to build a team, what do you think would happen? You’ve spent all this money, and you haven’t developed a winning franchise.

“You would get fired in the same way in the NFL. You be an NFL GM, and you have a budget, you have a salary cap. You have to be within that, and you expect to bring in the best players. He doesn’t know what the f*** he’s doing.

“One thing he’s really good at in promoting and done a good job with women. I give him credit where credit is due. But as far as the American market, he knows nothing about it because he has nothing to show for it.

“When you look at DAZN USA, it’s been a failure and it’s been well documented. That’s not only my opinion, those are facts. He speaks about things because of what it is, he’s a very jealous guy.

“He thought he was going to be able to come over here because he’s got the big checkbook, but there’s a method to this. We understand, myself, Al Haymon, and Floyd Mayweather, we understand what this marketplace is.

“When you look at Mayweather Promotions, we hold all the records for the biggest pay-per-view in the history of the sport, the biggest live gate in the history of the sport. So that should tell you everything you need to know.”

Brian Custer: “Talking about Eddie Hearn, he said quote, ‘Why are we the biggest global promotional company in the world bar none. Leonard Ellerbe, is not even relevant in the boxing industry.

‘When you talk about the top promoters in the world, do you even mention Leonard Ellerbe? Let’s be honest. Not in a million years, but you’re going to mention Eddie Hearn.'”

Ellerbe: “Well because he’s got the loudest mouth. He wants to be bigger than the fighters, and that’s a fact. Bob [Arum] would tell you that. Lou DiBella would tell you that. Any of the excellent promoters, the guys over here would tell you that.

“He’s just a loudmouth because it’s whoever talks the loudest. Again, you can’t come over to the United States thinking you’re going to be loud. That doesn’t get you nowhere. You’ve got to understand what the marketplace looks like.

“When you’re signing fighters, you’ve got to understand, who are you going to match them up with? If you don’t have any access to any of the top fighters that are out there, you have a bunch of really good fighters, but who are they going to fight?

“You haven’t made no big fights yet. And as it relates to his knowledge of how to match fighters, look what he did with Anthony Joshua? I feel really bad. Anthony Joshua was a nice young man, and I think he’s a terrific fighter.

“But there’s no promoter that would put their fighter, as big as Anthony Joshua is overseas, put him in with Andy Ruiz with three weeks’ notice. Who does that?

“You know you’ve completely f**** up Anthony Joshua’s career, and you’ve kind of done the same thing with Canelo, and here’s why. When you look at Canelo, and we’re honest, if you look at Canelo, he was a much bigger fighter when he signed with that app [DAZN] that nobody watches.

“His numbers have gone down drastically. If you look at his last pay-per-view fight just recently with Bivol, it was trash. Alvarez and Plant just did between 750 and 800,000. They [Canelo vs. Bivol] did a third of that. A little over 300,000.

“If you look at the live get, he did $18 million with Plant. This gate right here wasn’t even nine million dollars. It’s just an example that Canelo’s popularity has gone down drastically because he’s signed to an app that nobody watches.

“So all the fighters over there, they’re not getting the visibility that they deserve because nobody watches DAZN. Nobody watches DAZN, and he’s [Hearn] is the same guy that said, ‘Pay-per-view is dead.’

“He spent all this money on slogans. Again, he’s a clown, and everyone knows that. That’s why you just laugh. I’m not going to go back and forth with him because he knows what time of day it is.”

Custer: “He knows what it is [when beef with Hearn started]. It’s very personal and I gave him a phone call a while ago. He knows what time of day it is.

“Again, I don’t want to go back into all of that because I try to be as professional as I possibly can, but that’s one guy that I can honestly say that if I had the opportunity, I’d stomp him out.”

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