Eddie Hearn surrendered first blood in his battle with Dana White.
On Friday, Hearn and his promotion, Matchroom Boxing, suffered a huge blow when longtime Matchroom cornerstone Conor Benn made a shocking decision to sign with Zuffa Boxing. This signing came on the heels of Hearn and Dana White butting heads in the media recently over White’s new promotion. And to lose a fighter as significant as Benn to his new rival, well, it stings.
“I’ve known about this for a few days now, what was unfolding,” Hearn told iFL TV. “I, actually, received an email from Conor Benn’s lawyer to make me aware of it.
“I’m not going to sit here and hang Conor Benn out to dry. I’ve got to be honest with you; me, personally pretty devastated. I’ve had a few days to digest what might happen. So, maybe this interview’s different to what it would have been a couple of days ago.
“It’s not often you get shocked, and I blame myself. I blame myself. Because I just forgot it was boxing, you know? I just felt that the loyalty that we’ve shown would never, ever put us in this position. And I just felt that I never really needed to push Conor Benn to sign a new contract previously. I probably could have got him to sign a new contract previously. Like I said, I blame myself. I made a mistake because I misjudged the character.
“And again, I’m not going to hang him out to dry. He will say, ‘Oh, it was a big offer!’ But, you know, when I received the email from his lawyer, I texted him and said, ‘I think we should have a call. For everything I’ve done for you, I think I deserve a call,’ and he said no. And I was like, man, f*ck. I can’t believe it.
“I just, I don’t know what to say. I felt that everything that we gave him, the loyalty that we gave him, the support we gave him, would be enough to talk it through, or just get close to a number. But it wasn’t really the interest. So, very surprising. Very painful. But just another moment in life that you live and learn from.”
Benn has been a staple of Matchroom for nearly a decade and is one of the promotion’s biggest draws. In his announcement, Benn noted his long relationship with Hearn and said he hopes Hearn will “continue to be part of my team and our partnership to evolve in this new chapter.” But despite their long history together, Benn ultimately chose to leave, and while Hearn isn’t ruling out working together in the future, it’s clear he’s been hurt by Benn’s decision.
“Time is a healer, isn’t it?” Hearn said when asked about working with Benn again. “I’m not going to sit here — I’ve read all the comments. I think I’ve never been so popular for a few hours. But ultimately, everyone’s different. I’ve had a couple of texts — because he texted me just after the announcement — and I replied. We had a few back-and-forths, but you either feel like you’ve done nothing wrong or — like I said, everyone’s different.
“I’ve had dozens of messages from people in boxing like, ‘Are you having a laugh?’ But like I said, everyone’s different. I’m not even going to go too deep on it, because I could do. But, I don’t know, it feels a little bit like a wasted few years, because I gave a lot. I gave a lot. You know how hard I fought when no one believed him, no one backed him. I did. I believed him, and I backed him. And I never gave in when he was done, out. Loaned him hundreds of thousands of pounds. But yeah, on we go. …
“I don’t know,” Hearn continued when asked again. “Who knows what the agreement is? Like I said, I’m not going to sit here and — I had some very choice words with his manager, Keith Connelly. … Sometimes you live in that world and you just kind of lose your head a little bit. You just kind of lose an understanding of reality and what’s right and wrong. I just feel that the way it was done was very, very wrong. But that’s just my opinion. And here, he might say, ‘Yeah, but it was a lot of money.’ But like I said, everyone’s different. Some people, loyalty really matters. Other people, maybe not so.”
A sticking point for Hearn seems to be the end of the negotiations. Unconfirmed reports say that Benn’s deal with Zuffa is a one-fight, eight-figure deal, and while Hearn didn’t speak to the numbers, he says Matchroom could have come close to matching the offer, but Benn wasn’t interested.
“We replied,” Hearn said. “I think part of the deal we would have got quite close to, but I think by then it was just the way that it played out. It was like, to receive an email from the lawyer, and then to ask for a call and not get the willingness to have a call, I think by then it was just — you kind of lose a little bit of your soul to it. Like, wow, I really lost a lot of my soul during that two-year period. It was pretty brutal. So, at the moment, it’s just digesting it. It’s a little bit numb. But right now, there’s a lot I could say. There’s a lot I could say, but we’ll keep it classy.”
This also, of course, colored the spat between Hearn and Dana White earlier this week, with Hearn acknowledging that while the Benn signing didn’t happen as a result of their exchange, but is intertwined in the growing beef between the two promoters.
“This was kind of before that, if I’m honest,” Hearn said. “But definitely a part of the reason. Conor was used as a pawn in that respect, but that’s just the business. … This has got nothing to do with my comments yesterday, because this was days before that. But it’s all part of the game. Obviously, Turki, Dana, all that kind of stuff. But like I said, this is going to be a long war.”
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