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

The Murky World of Pay Per View

Before Christmas, both Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren gave interviews to IFL TV talking about the Pay Per View situation in the UK and where both their companies stand in terms of their relationship with Sky. This has been a topic of much contention with people from all angles being brought into the discussion. In this article, I will hopefully clear up and summarise why there has been such confusion and what really is going on with Pay Per View in the UK.

On the 21st March 2015 it was announced that Sky Sports and Matchroom had extended their exclusive deal with each other to 2021. What this meant was that only Matchroom fighters could fight on Sky Sports unless Sky Sports and Matchroom came to an agreement that a fighter from another stable could box on Sky Sports. For example, George Groves, who is promoted by Team Sauerland, is boxing on Sky Sports 1 against Andrea Di Luisa on the 30th January 2016.

Eddie Hearn, the promoter of Matchroom Sports, was quoted saying 'we and Sky are exclusive; PPV is only on Sky'. Barry and Eddie Hearn have been saying throughout 2015 that they had exclusive Pay Per View with Sky. Now this is the problem that promoters such as Frank Warren and Mick Hennessy have with Eddie Hearn because this 'exclusive' deal is only exclusive to Sky Sports. Eddie Hearn has been saying that Matchroom Sports is exclusive with Sky and this is simply not the case. He is exclusive with Sky Sports, which is what Frank Warren and others have been trying to stress.

As Frank and his son George announced on IFL TV, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppgky7FF0jo) Box Nation are in talks with Sky about setting up a Pay Per View in 2016. Now this is a deal with Sky Box Office which is a completely separate branch of Sky to Sky Sports. The reason why this is so important is because Eddie Hearn has been telling fighters that the only way to get on Sky Box Office is if you sign with Matchroom Sports.

This has given him a huge bargaining chip in the race for promotion teams to sign up and coming prospects and it is simply not the case. Fighters have been convinced that they must sign with Matchroom in order to make any kind of real money which means that they will not want to sign on with Hennessy Sports or Queensbury Promotions. It also means that customers will not want to pay for the Box Nation package that is offered if they think that they cannot show the best fights on that channel.

This is why it is so important to clear up this Pay Per View mess because Matchroom and most notably Eddie Hearn have been creating, as George Warren calls it, a 'distortion' in the boxing market which has meant that other companies are losing out on potential revenue and fighters because of these inaccurate comments.

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44