NeverYield Posted February 20 Posted February 20 Eddie went in on Dana and that lot like he was dealing with a small hall promoter Like Dana or hate him he's clearly got some pull, irrespective of whether i think hes a good payer or not. Quote
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted February 20 Paid Members Posted February 20 So Matchroom sign a new deal with DAZN and the same day Matchroom lose their number one attraction. I know their is no loyalty in boxing from either the promoter or the boxer but Fast Car took it in the teeth for two years while Benn was on his drug ban, defending him to the hilt, then he fucks off to the person in boxing that Eddie hates the most at the minute. That's some gratitude. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted February 20 Posted February 20 (edited) Hearn's reaction has been uploaded to IFL. He's not even bothering to put on a brave face. I dislike all involved, so I'm just going to enjoy the fur flying between them all. Surely Benn signing with White means a UK TV deal for Zuffa is imminent. They have been rumoured to have been talking with Sky. Edited February 20 by jimufctna24 Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 21 Paid Members Posted February 21 Mad thing is, from various reports it’s a “one fight deal for eight figures”, so a minimum of 10 mil. For Conor Benn. Who’s not actually really done anything, has the stench of PEDs on him and already had the fight that was guaranteed to generate buzz against Eubank. 10 mil for that. UFC fighters must be silently raging. Imagine the relative pittance the likes of Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira are gonna get paid for their fight in a couple of weeks compared to this. Most UFC fighters won’t kick up a fuss (probably none will) because they all seem to have this weird Stockholm syndrome when it comes to this stuff. But they can’t look at news like this as anything other than a slap in the face. And we all know Dana likes to slap faces. Very unusual that it’s a one fight deal as well. That’s absolutely not the Zuffa way of doing things usually. I can’t remember them ever signing anyone to a one fight contract in the UFC, except maybe Brock when he came in for the Mark Hunt fight at UFC 200? But even then I’m hazy on the details and maybe they did sign him for more than one fight back then and the other fights just never happened. Quote
Kfogg1991 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Jesus Christ this one has shocked the world, Dana just made it personal and he's not going into boxing quietly he's just got everyone in the boxing world's respect or detest and disgust on this. Signing him to a one fight deal that's ten figures long comes off as money with no limits and a wcw mindset throw ludicrous contracts at the biggest names and make it almost impossible to refuse and say no. But say BENN does the one shot deal then tried too go somewhere else I don't think that's easy anymore cos he's just shown no loyalty or reasoning to working with him after doing this to Eddie I never thought I'd say this but I genuinely felt bad for him watching that interview and responding to the news and him saying he text and said after everything I've done I think I at the very least deserve a call and explanation and got the reply I'm not interested sorry......cold as fuck Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 21 Author Paid Members Posted February 21 8 hours ago, jimufctna24 said: Surely Benn signing with White means a UK TV deal for Zuffa is imminent. They have been rumoured to have been talking with Sky. Yeah, that has to be the play. Eddie Hearn has spoken about it, and it genuinely sounds like this thing came out of nowhere. Remember Eddie giving it the whole "Connor is the peoples Champion thing", no one ever bought that, but this is about as big a heel turn in Boxing that I can remember. Meanwhile... Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 21 Paid Members Posted February 21 Looks very smug considering they just massively overpaid for a British level boxer. Quite fitting that Conor’s new boss is actually an egg though. He just can’t kick that addiction can he? Quote
NeverYield Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Yeah an 8 figure 1 fight deal Imagine being one of the UFC guys getting paid nowhere near what you're worth and then they lay out 8 figures for this guy.. Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 21 Paid Members Posted February 21 Not to defend Plastic Caesar, as that's the last thing I would do, but I would venture to guess that a lot of MMA fighters know already that there's much less money in MMA than boxing, simply because of audience numbers, market, and infrastructure. @wandshogun09 or @Egg Shen or @jimufctna24 are much more likely to know what the numbers are, but I would venture to guess that the number of eyeballs on the big three MMA promotions probably don't come close to those on most big-time boxing matches. Obviously, White is in a big part responsible for the MMA market never growing past a certain point, deliberately so that he can always have fighters under his thumb and keep claiming way larger percentages than boxing promoters do off their fighters, but there's also the simple historical aspect, no? Boxing has just been around and accepted longer. Don't get me wrong; any MMArtist would be well within their rights to be annoyed. But I think they also accept that, for the present, the only way they're earning boxing money is to do boxing. Quote
NeverYield Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Yeah you are right I can imagine the acceptance is obviously there, and most of them don't seem to kick up too much of a fuss anyway, as the few guys who have tried to make a stand don't seem to have ever been backed by the majority, I'm not massively clued in on all that though. Yeah big time boxing matches still smash the numbers. Still can't believe Benn though, wouldln't even give Hearn a phonecall, after Hearn had helped him financially and backed him when people were running his name down all over this country. In life we all have to do what is best for ourselves, and sometimes that means cutting ties with people. Usually though that is after said person has fucked you over in some way, or things have truly run their course, which is nowhere near the case for Eddie and Connor, and he was in interviews a while back giving it all the 'I know where my bread is buttered, my loyalty is with Matchroom' spiel. I have never liked Connor and always felt I've seen him for what he is, a dickhead bascially, and this proves despite being a 'tough guy' in the world of boxing he's got no substance or strength of character. What ever you may think of Hearn, or promoters in general, from a financial and career standpoint Hearn went to bat for Connor and while it obviously wasn't totally selfless behaviour he looked out for him, and not even accepting a request of a simple phonecall, well, thats gratitude for you. Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 21 Paid Members Posted February 21 It really is a shame. I always supported Benn against Eubank in the 90s, but Connor is such a fucking dickhead. I don't shed any tears for a boxing promoter generally - they're living in a world they created - but for myself, as an everyday mug who values loyalty, Connor Benn is the kind of person for whom God gave us a middle finger. I would absolutely love it </keegan> now if Hearn, using his resources, started putting on MMA bouts using the boxing model, generating tons of fighter pay and fucking over Zuffa and Dr. Eggman. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 (edited) 39 minutes ago, NeverYield said: Yeah you are right I can imagine the acceptance is obviously there, and most of them don't seem to kick up too much of a fuss anyway, as the few guys who have tried to make a stand don't seem to have ever been backed by the majority, I'm not massively clued in on all that though. Yeah big time boxing matches still smash the numbers. Still can't believe Benn though, wouldln't even give Hearn a phonecall, after Hearn had helped him financially and backed him when people were running his name down all over this country. In life we all have to do what is best for ourselves, and sometimes that means cutting ties with people. Usually though that is after said person has fucked you over in some way, or things have truly run their course, which is nowhere near the case for Eddie and Connor, and he was in interviews a while back giving it all the 'I know where my bread is buttered, my loyalty is with Matchroom' spiel. I have never liked Connor and always felt I've seen him for what he is, a dickhead bascially, and this proves despite being a 'tough guy' in the world of boxing he's got no substance or strength of character. What ever you may think of Hearn, or promoters in general, from a financial and career standpoint Hearn went to bat for Connor and while it obviously wasn't totally selfless behaviour he looked out for him, and not even accepting a request of a simple phonecall, well, thats gratitude for you. I agree with everything you have typed there. Benn is one of the worst characters in boxing, easily, and this debacle has only proven that further. But I don't have much sympathy for Hearn. As you mentioned, Hearn's behaviour while defending Benn wasn't entirely selfless. There were always rumours that Hearn had invested heavily in Benn (Hearn admitted last night that he had lent Benn money, so perhaps that was part of the rumoured investment), and wanted a return on that investment (probably in the form of the Eubank fights). Furthermore, it's strongly rumoured that an issue the BBBOFC had while fighting Benn's case was that they didn't have the finance or resources to compete with Matchroom/Hearn's deep pockets and legal team (which were obviously backing Benn). Had Benn not been Nigel's son, I have little doubt that Hearn would have cast aside, or at least not fought as stringently for Benn's ban to be lifted. I've long believed that Hearn also stood by Benn out of desperation. Fury was with Warren, Joshua had just lost twice to Usyk, etc, and he didn't really have another major British draw on his payroll (he did have a huge non-British draw in Canelo at the time, but he would soon leave too). Edited February 21 by jimufctna24 Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 21 Paid Members Posted February 21 (edited) 50 minutes ago, Carbomb said: Not to defend Plastic Caesar, as that's the last thing I would do, but I would venture to guess that a lot of MMA fighters know already that there's much less money in MMA than boxing, simply because of audience numbers, market, and infrastructure. I get what you’re saying but I feel like the ‘less money in MMA than Boxing’ argument doesn’t wash so much anymore. The UFC literally just signed a $7.7 BILLION deal with Paramount and on top of that they’re in bed with Turki. They’ve never been rolling in money as much as they are now yet you’ve still got champions in the biggest MMA promotion (by far) in the world making $600K or something for defending their title. They’ve made little gestures like upping the bonuses and stuff but overall they’re still vastly underpaying their fighters when you look at the money they have and the money they make off these guys and girls. I know you’re not arguing against that but I genuinely don’t buy the ‘less money in MMA’ thing anymore. It doesn’t cut it in 2026 for me. Yeah, the absolute elite vs elite in Boxing will be bigger and more lucrative than the top MMA fights, but they’ve got so much fucking money now it’s basically crumbs they’re giving the roster. It’ll never change. For the same reason the WWF/E never had a union. It’s always chalked up to ‘you couldn’t get the boys to agree on what to order for dinner, let alone unionise’ and there’s probably a lot of that. But like with MMA, I think the main problem is that you need the top stars to back any kind of action like that to make the promoters really feel it and fear it. But the top stars are doing alright, or they’re at least scared of losing their spot, so they don’t wanna rock the boat. And everything stays the same. Even the recent class action lawsuit against the UFC, a lot of guys got payouts, think Anderson Silva got $8 million or something mad, but it was pretty much entirely made up of ex or semi-retired fighters. You need active, current and relevant top stars to take a stand to make it work and that’s just never gonna happen. The best hope MMA probably had of making something happen was probably around 2014/15 when you had Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey at their absolute peak. If those two would’ve stood solid with the whole roster at that time, even then it’s not a given but maybe something could’ve been done. But again, those two were flying high and it’s the old ‘I’m alright Jack’ mentality. Back on this Conor Benn thing, you just know Dana and Turki are gonna throw mental figures at AJ to jump ship to Zuffa the nanosecond they can contractually do it. If Hearn is crushed by losing Conor Benn, can you imagine how bad he’d take losing AJ? I don’t think AJ would jump, and if he did he probably wouldn’t handle it as piss poorly as Benn has, but you never know with the money Zuffa are throwing around. $15 mil is the number going around for what they’re paying Conor Benn. If they’ll pay that for him, they’ll definitely throw silly money at AJ. Just to gut Matchroom. Dana is probably already in Skye Nicholson’s DMs as we speak. Edited February 21 by wandshogun09 Quote
jimufctna24 Posted February 21 Posted February 21 (edited) Dan Rafael has also hinted that news bigger than the Benn defection is imminent. I genuinely have no idea what it could be. Btw, the deal that Zuffa have cut with Benn raised my eyebrows too. It appears that Zuffa could make it's UK debut in May, so perhaps they have thrown a 8 figure sum at Benn to please whichever UK TV network they are in talks with. Edited February 21 by jimufctna24 Quote
Gooner Posted February 21 Posted February 21 This all could tie in with Ryan Garcia who challenges Barrios tonight for the WBC title at 147lbs and his contract according to him expiring with Golden Boy promotions tomorrow and him signing for Zuffa and then facing Benn next with Benn only signing on a one fight deal(which does seem very strange) if he wins tonight. I'm not too surprised to hear Benn had left Matchroom, I know they always seemed tight through it all, but when comes down to it, ones a boxing promoter and one is a boxer, so these things can happen no doubt how tight you are as money usually tops friendships. Hearn did very well by Benn through the whole drugs scandal, helping him financially etc, but I'm not having that was all from the kindness of his heart, he himself knew and made a lot of money off those two Eubank Jr/Benn fights taking place. Quote
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