By Charles Brun: Promoter Eddie Hearn is still eager to make the Chris Eubank Jr vs. Conor Benn fight despite Benn’s positive results for a banned substance in a VADA-conducted test.
Hearn maintains that Benn (21-0, 14 KOs) is cleared to fight and isn’t suspended after testing positive for clomifene. However, the backlash Hearn & Matchroom will receive from the boxing public should he reschedule the Eubank-Benn fight will be tremendous.
Hearn needs to think clearly before he makes the decision to reschedule the fight because he’s going to be widely criticized if he does.
It’s fair to say there will be a dark cloud that follows Benn wherever he goes, and it would be wise for Hearn not to attempt to reschedule the match until well after Conor gets several wins under his belt.
The problem that Hearn has is it’s questionable whether Benn has the talent to defeat the top welterweights like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, Vergil Ortiz Jr, and Keith Thurman. Having seen Benn fight many times, I don’t give him any chances of beating any of those fighters, and, of course, not with Errol Spence Jr or Terence Crawford.
It would be a feeding frenzy for those talented welterweights if Hearn threw Benn in the ring with them.
Additionally, you can’t move Benn up to 154 because he would be massacred by top fighters like Sebastian Fundora, Jermell Charlo, Tim Tszyu, and Tony Harrison. Benn is too small & limited to be matched against those fighters.
Hearn can’t keep shuffling washed-up fighters into the ring with Benn to rebuild his name because the fans will see through that.
He’s got to match Benn with quality fighters like Boots Ennis, Ortiz, Thurman, or even David Avanesyan, a fighter that he’s shown no interest in fighting.
It’s very likely that if Hearn matches Conor Benn against Ennis or any of the other talented contenders at 147, he’s going to lose to them. Once that happens, the money that Benn has been faithfully bringing into Matchroom will dry up like a depleted oil well.
“I feel like the right decision has been made. I feel like the people in the sport will feel like the right decision has been made,” said Eddie Hearn to DAZN Boxing about the postponement of the Chris Eubank Jr vs. Conor Benn fight.
“We move forward with a resolution to try and make this fight happen if it’s the right thing to do. At some point, you have to down tools and say, ‘We got to make the right decision here.’
“Whilst we feel the board has not made certain decisions correctly during this process, we also understand the bigger picture. There’s been a lot of conversations with Wasserman and Chris Eubank Jr, and he wants the fight.
“I was in his room 45 minutes ago. He was three pounds overweight, ready to weigh-in tomorrow. He was going to make that weight, and he’s disappointed.
“The one thing he wants more than anything right now is to fight Conor Benn and do a job on him, but I believe we’ll see that. It’s a massive fight, but as he said, ‘Things have to be right,’ and that’s the process we’ll undertake now.
“Right now, this fight is postponed. The tickets are refunded. The show is off. It’s bad for the undercard as well. When you have ticket prices that are reflected on the main event and not the undercard, and you offer a full refund, it’s one or the other.
“You let people come without a refund, or you give everybody a refund and cancel the show. All those fighters on the undercard will be rescheduled over the next few days in terms of their dates.
“We move forward. We try to make this fight; Chris Eubank wants this fight to happen. Conor Benn obviously wants to make this fight happen, and that’s the aim. We’ll go through this process and make sure everyone’s comfortable and right.
Conor Benn clear to fight
“Ultimately, he’s clear to fight. Rather than jump through a loophole to make this fight happen through the courts, we want to make sure that everybody is comfortable,” said Hearn when asked where Conor Benn goes from here.
