Eddie Hearn interview: Usyk
“I think he’s always going to be undersized against the heavyweights. You’re right, styles make fights and against a more technical fighter he’ll be more effective. Against a rigid, durable brawler like Chisora, it’ll take him a little bit of time to sort of get over that and adapt.”
Joshua – Pulev
“We haven’t completely decided yet. The thought of going to the O2 Arena was to get three, four thousand in there. Obviously that was pre lockdown. We’ll still keep pushing for that. It’s starting to look unlikely. If we can’t get a crowd it would make sense to put it in Wembley Arena. We’ve taken that over for six weeks and we’ve a fully built system in place. But literally it’s event by event at the moment. Alexander Povetkin got Covid and that same morning someone got cut and the next morning someone else got injured. Literally at the moment, anything can happen. I’ll probably got the office now and another fight has fallen through. You make another. He goes for his Covid test on Friday and he fails. We’ve got a show in Florida this weekend with Devin Haney. They all tested yesterday negative. Boxing gives you the greatest highs but it can also kick you in the proverbial at any time. Normally there is a five per cent chance in fight week you may lose a fight. Now there’s a 50 per cent chance. Actually you have to keep smiling and laughing. The other day when we had three fights fall through, in the end I just started laughing because otherwise you’ll start crying. Solve the short term problems, keeping going because we have to keep the sport going.”
Garcia v Campbell
“Great fight. So many unanswered questions about Ryan Garcia. But loads of questions have been asked of Luke Campbell. Though he fell short against Linares and Lomachenko, he’s one of the best lightweights in the world. A fantastic amateur pedigree, growing in confidence under Shane McGuigan. It’s a proper test for Ryan. A lot of it comes down to how good is Ryan Garcia. Luke Campbell might just wipe the floor with him.”
“It’s the same with Devin Haney. Maybe he’s stepped up a little bit more than Garcia, but they’re both guys who have carried a lot of hype and it takes time to find out.”
On Tyson Fury:
“The reason we offered Dillian Whyte is twofold. Number one is Dillian Whyte has been in camp for nine weeks and he wants to fight. He’s a worthy challenger for the WBC world title and 100 per cent of the people would rather Tyson Fury fight Dillian Whyte than Agit Kabayel. Unquestionable. That’s why we put that name forward. We know AJ is fighting Pulev and Tyson Fury is fighting [in December]. If he’s looking for an opponent, fight Dillian Whyte. There isn’t one man or woman in the world who would rather him fight Agit Kabayel.”
“When you experience things, things become less painful. When we experienced Andy Ruiz beating Anthony Joshua, it was completely soul destroying. So now we realise we come back stronger and it can happen. If you’re not 100 per cent on the ball you can get beat. I’ve seen AJ adapt. All he’s thinking about is Kubrat Pulev. We know 2021 will probably bring two fights with Tyson Fury, but we can’t look at that right now. Pulev is not Agit Kabayel. He’s a big, dangerous heavyweight who is top five. He has one defeat on his record to Wladimir Klitschko. He was an outstanding amateur, punches very hard. This is a tough fight. Let’s get that fight, secure the win and get the mega-fights on in 2021.”