09/04/2016: Another Typical Matchroom Night

On the 9^th April boxing fans will be treated to another ‘massive’ night of boxing, courtesy of Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Sports, when heavyweight superstar Anthony Joshua takes on IBF world champion Charles Martin. On the under-card, we will see the likes of IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby, super-middleweight contender, George Groves and two shot fighters in Matthew Macklin and Brian Rose who will go head to head.

There are a number of reasons why this is a typical Matchroom night of boxing. The first thing is to the under-card. What Eddie Hearn loves to do in all his PPV card is get big names fighting absolute nobodies in order to give the card a bit of weight.

This is certainly the case with George Groves who is fighting unknown prospect, David Brophy. It is well known that Groves sells really well on Sky hence Hearn keeps putting him back on the card however yet again he is fighting an unknown quantity which he seems to do in all his fights unless he is fighting for a world title, i.e. Andrea Di Luisa, Denis Douglin and Christopher Rebrasse.

Lee Selby is fighting mandatory Eric Hunter in a fight that Selby should dominate. Having Selby on the card gives Hearn the perfect selling point that he has two ‘massive’ world title fights on the card and hence justifies the bill being PPV.

Although it is unlikely Macklin and Rose will ever challenge at world level again this still, in my opinion, remains a really good fight. The fighters are well matched, which is something we rarely see on a Matchroom card, and it has the potential to be a tear-up.

All boxing fans want to see is fighters that are well matched without having the wool pulled over our eyes that because there are big names on the card therefore it will be a great night of boxing. Joshua, if he is half as good as people make him out to be, will destroy the unknown quantity that is Charles Martin who was ranked 43^rd by BoxRec before he beat Vyacheslav Glaskov to win the IBF belt.

Then we will have to listen to Hearn rant on about the fact that Joshua is now a global star who transcends the sport of boxing and watch in horror the reaction it will get on twitter. People seem to forget that Joshua is fighting for a title that was wrongly stripped from Tyson Fury.

I really hope that PPV does not become a staple of the Sky/Matchroom package. PPV should only be used if there is no other way of putting the fight on. Not if Tony Bellew and Nathan Cleverly are fighting for an interim belt or if Joshua and Dillian Whyte are fighting for the British title. This is the road that Matchroom is leading fight fans down on where any half decent fight will be put on PPV and it simply should not be allowed to happen however there is very little one can do about it.

It is such a shame because Hearn with the backing of Sky has the potential to put together some really good 50/50 fights. However fans have to constantly deal with the standard procedure of placing a big name on the card in a fight that he is guaranteed to win and selling that to the casual fan who has no idea what he is buying except the name. This has been the case for a number of years now and April 9^th is no different sadly.

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44