Eddie Hearn has no fear of TKO’s potential boxing takeover: ‘Those guys won’t be able to lace my boots’

Fronted by Turki Alalshikh, UFC CEO Dana White and WWE President Nick Khan, TKO announced its entry into the boxing market in early March, yet little is still known about their plans other than their likely roles as lead promoters for the planned Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford bout in September.

Although some view TKO as a major threat to traditional boxing promoters, Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn takes a different view.

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“I think Dana coming into boxing is going to be brilliant for boxing,” Hearn told Uncrowned during an in-studio appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Tuesday.

“If you back yourself — those guys, in my opinion, won’t be able to lace my boots in boxing promotion. As a business, as an organization, as [the] UFC — unbelievable. But this is different. When you go to sleep as a boxing promoter [and] you wake up in the morning, nothing is ever the same. You have to sleep with one eye open every single night.

“If you think you’re going to control this world, which is what they really have done in MMA — and I think that’s a similar model they’ll try and bring into boxing — I don’t think it’s possible.

“It’s going to be interesting how it’s all positioned,” Hearn continued. “I don’t really think it will infiltrate the boxing world just yet. I think they’re going to come in, create this league, young prospects, some guys that are ready for 50-50s and guys that [are at that level]. We had a situation the other day where we had a fight that was fourth on the card, and it was a B-side fighter, and they said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be available for this fight now because I’m signed with TKO.’ And I’m like, with all due respect, I don’t mean to be rude, ‘You?!'”

Hearn reiterated his belief that TKO’s initial plans in boxing will focus on lesser-known fighters, who would be less expensive and who TKO would perhaps have more control over in terms of matchmaking.

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With Showtime’s exit from boxing and the subsequent end of ShoBox, as well as the demise of contender tournaments from television networks in the U.S., there has been a gap in the boxing market for a developmental series. ProBoxTV has attempted to fill that void but is unable to build fighters’ profiles as successfully without a major network behind them.

TKO could fill that vacancy with a “league” format involving younger fighters, essentially building stars from the bottom up.

Hearn, however, is doubtful about whether TKO will be successful in monopolizing the boxing market in the short term, pointing to the competition and fragmented nature of the sport as potential obstacles.

“Dana is a great guy. He’s very intelligent, the [UFC] business is an incredible business,” Hearn said. “They’re not going to come in and fail, in my opinion. But it’s just the size of what they do and achieve that’s going to be very interesting. I’ll be honest, I don’t really fear it.

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“It doesn’t matter who’s involved. You’ve still got to come up and beat the system [and beat] the opposition. If you think that people like me, people like [Golden Boy’s] Oscar De La Hoya, people like [Top Rank’s] Bob Arum, people like [Queensberry’s] Frank Warren are going to roll over and go, ‘It’s been a great run, hasn’t it? TKO is here now’ — no, no, it ain’t going to go down like that.”

In a largely contentious move, TKO has begun to process of asking for amendments to the Muhammad Ali Act, which was designed to protect boxers from being exploited. Although it is unclear what other specific amendments are being discussed, TKO is looking to have boxers fight for TKO belts rather than the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF belts primarily used in professional boxing.

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“The Ali Act is designed to defend the fighter and protect the fighter,” Hearn said. “So if there are going to be variations of that and a kind of strategy to remove it or alter it, for me that’s something where a fighter would be going, ‘Hang on, the Ali Act is there to protect me. What do you want to change it for?'”

One of TKO’s biggest hurdles in boxing, Hearn believes, will be the backlash from athletes in TKO’s other sporting properties — White’s UFC and Khan’s WWE — when they become aware of how much the company will be paying boxers who deliver similar pay-per-view numbers to themselves.

In past years, an approximate total of only 18.6% of the revenue from UFC events was paid out to the fighters, while in boxing, those numbers can often be flipped the other way around.

“If they’re promoting ‘Canelo’-Crawford, the combined value of those purses is, call it, anywhere between $120 [million] and $150 million,” Hearn said.

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“If you’re fronting that up and you’re the promotion, and that fight does a million and a half [pay-per-view] buys or whatever it does, does that mean when a UFC fighter does a million and a half buys, they’re also going to make $100 million?”

Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn 2

A Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn rematch is being planned for the end of September at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Hearn confirmed Tuesday.

Eubank won a competitive unanimous decision (116-112, 116-112, 116-112) over Benn in a Fight of the Year contender in front of a 67,484 sell-out crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this past Saturday.

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Eubank and Benn produced a slugfest that British boxing will never forget, with their fathers — Chris Eubank Sr. and Nigel Benn, who themselves shared the ring twice in the 1990s for two historic fights — watching along from ringside. The event was a major success for the sport across the pond.

“Very close [to 1 million pay-per-view buys in the UK],” Hearn said of Eubank vs. Benn. “They will take a while to trickle it — well over 1 million worldwide. DAZN did extremely well.”

Eubank missed weight for the fight by .05 pounds and appeared drained on the scales at the official weigh-in and later at the ceremonial weigh-in. The British boxer was also taken to the hospital in the aftermath of the brutal fight for precautionary checks, leading some to believe that Eubank has outgrown the 160-pound middleweight division.

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Despite this, Hearn told Uncrowned that a Eubank vs. Benn rematch is signed to be contested at 160 pounds with a 10-pound rehydration clause — the same terms as their first fight.

Benn was the antagonist throughout the build and on fight night, but even some of Benn’s biggest detractors have since voiced respect for his gritty showing against the much larger Eubank.

“He never stopped trying to win the fight, and that’s what fans love,” Hearn said of Benn. “He wasn’t trying to survive and hold, he was trying to knock Eubank out in [rounds] 11 and 12, while he was taking a bit of a beating in those rounds. The fathers, the build-up, the moment — it was like the greatest fight that I’ve ever seen.

“Conor Benn trains harder than any fighter I’ve ever met, and the guy grew up in a mansion. Junior wanted it bad, and he grew up in that [same] kind of environment. Don’t underestimate the one with fire in their heart. What you witnessed on Saturday — it’s quite amazing to see two kids from that [privileged] background show so much grit in the trenches, and that’s what was just exhilarating about that fight.”

Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury

The day after Eubank and Benn gave British fans a fight for the ages, news broke that boxing’s undisputed heavyweight championship is set to be contested on British soil for the first time in the four-belt era when Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois unify the titles on July 19 at London’s Wembley Stadium.

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All signs are pointing to 2025 being a vintage year for the sport in the U.K., but Hearn is still hoping the biggest of them all is yet to come. Despite Tyson Fury’s latest retirement from boxing, Hearn hasn’t given up hope on seeing Fury take on Anthony Joshua sometime later this year.

“This just comes down to Tyson Fury probably reaching out to AJ,” Hearn said. “When you’ve got two guys of that level, I think sometimes it’s just a little DM saying, ‘Do you fancy it?'”

Famously, long-stalled negotiations between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence made significant progress when the pair spoke directly on the phone in May 2023. Crawford and Spence ended up fighting in July of that same year.

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“AJ’s had a little injury that he’s been dealing with, so we’re not kind of like rushing back to the ring,” Hearn said. “He’ll fight this year, but at the same time, AJ has got somewhere between one and three fights left. Who are you really going to fight? If Dubois beats Usyk, he could fight Usyk for the undisputed Eddie Hearn has no fear of TKO’s potential boxing takeover: ‘Those guys won’t be able to lace my boots’, that would be great. [Joseph Parker] yeah, maybe.

“For me, I think sooner or later Fury is going to [get antsy]. I think Fury is the kind of guy that would’ve watched Saturday [Eubank vs. Benn] and gone, ‘Woah, let’s do it.’ As big as Eubank-Benn is, Fury-AJ is just [another level]. And I believe that Tyson will want to give the fans that [fight], and we wait in anticipation. But it’s over to him, and we can’t do anything about it.”