Chris Eubank Jr faces a fresh legal battle with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom after accusing them of delaying his ambulance’s exit from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium following his victory over Conor Benn.
The explosive accusation, which Hearn vehemently denies, came at the launch press conference for the rematch after Eubank Jr prevailed in the first fight after 12 brutal rounds, edging out his bitter rival on points.
The scrap, that lived up to the hype in front of 67,000 fans, saw Eubank Jr taken to hospital afterwards due to dehydration, and the 35-year-old has now made a series of serious accusations against Hearn and Matchroom ahead of the rematch on 15 November, while maintaining that they attempted to “destroy” him.
“They did everything they could to try and destroy me in this last fight; contract breaches, fines, rehydration clauses, they sabotaged the weigh-in, [there was] biased commentary and refereeing, the list goes on,” Eubank Jr said in a rant, while repeating how Hearn had falsely suggested immediately after the fight that Eubank Jr was dealing with a broken jaw.
“After the fight, due to severe dehydration, I’m put in an ambulance and I have to go to hospital. I was so dehydrated, one of the toenails on my big toe fell off.
“I’m in the ambulance and these scumbags blocked that ambulance from leaving the stadium for 20 mins. We were locked in for 20 minutes, I’m lying there in a gurney with an oxygen mask on, the car cannot move because they won’t open the gates to let us leave.
“If this was a serious injury I’d sustained… that 20 minutes could have been the difference between life and death. While this was happening, Eddie Hearn and Conor Benn were talking to the media, lying about me having a broken jaw.”
Hearn engaged in a war of words on stage, labelling the accusations as “bulls***” before vowing to take legal action against the middleweight boxer.
“It [a conversation with our lawyer] won’t be tomorrow morning, it’ll be in five mins, you can’t do that,” Hearn told the written media, including The Independent, afterwards. “If you’re an idiot, you believe that s***. Go up to a paramedic, ‘just delay the ambulance by 20 minutes to go to the hospital’, he’s playing the victim, 90 percent of what he says is total bollocks.”
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The drama between Eubank Jr and Hearn comes after the chaos between the fighters in the initial press conference, when Eubank Jr cracked a raw egg on Benn’s face.
Hearn added that his father, and founder of Matchroom Sport, Barry Hearn, would have reacted more aggressively to the accusations made by Eubank Jr.
“[General Secretary of the British Board of Boxing Control] Robert Smith should sue him, too, he called him a scumbag,” he said. “He doesn’t know, there is a lot on fight night, paramedics, that exact procedure, it’s there in black and white. He’ll be making an apology. Or, we’ll be taking legal action, I can’t have this.
“I take this personally. That’s my life, our reputation is second to none. Making up shit like that, if you don’t know the game, you’d think, ‘I can’t believe Eddie has done that, he stoped an ambulance’.
“It [an apology] shouldn’t be enough, but that’s not my style, some would go for the jugular, right now, but he won’t apology, he’s arrogant.
“He [Barry Hearn] would chin him. He might’ve got up and chinned him off the bat, you can say whatever you want, once you talk shit and think you’ve got the story right, when you really haven’t.
“It’s not ‘an apology isn’t good enough’, but you come out and say ‘I got it wrong and I’m sorry’, but he won’t do it.”
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