‘I’m sure he’s injured’: Eddie Hearn responds to Dan Azeez suggesting he claimed staged injury
Eddie Hearn says he never accused Dan Azeez of faking an injury, but that he did hear ticket sales for the fight were going poorly.
During an interview with iFL TV, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn takes some time to talk about a number of fights and reacts to the news that Joshua Buatsi vs Dan Azeez has been postponed because of injury to Azeez. Hearn had previously mentioned rumors of that fight performing poorly in ticket sales, but says he never accused Azeez of faking the injury.
Hearn on the insinuation of him saying Azeez staged an injury
“I heard Dan Azeez’s comments. If he can show me an interview where I said he’s faked an injury I’d be astonished. What I said was two weeks ago that I’d heard that the show wasn’t going as planned and that it was going to be pulled. Now for what reason, someone said ticket sales, someone said an injury. I wouldn’t at all suggest that on Tuesday someone would go up to Dan Azeez and say ‘do me a favor and pull an injury.’
“So I’m sure he’s injured. But, yes, there was a lot of rumblings about that show. And listen, I want to see the fight because although we parted company, I’m disappointed for Joshua Buatsi because he was up here and — sometimes through fault of his own because he had terrible advice, but also through a bit of bad luck he’s just miles off where he should be and he’s a tremendous fighter.
“Boxing’s full of people with terrible advice. Some people listen to it, some people don’t. But, you know, you see some of those fighters that just listen to people who have absolutely no clue about boxing. I’m not even talking about the promotional company...you can’t advise a fighter if you have absolutely no knowledge about the sport in and out of the ring.
“Boxing, as I always say to you and I always say to people, there are no barriers to entry. It is the most bizzare world where someone who is absolutely useless can start giving you advice about your career. And next thing they’re in my office telling me ‘this kid should be getting this’ and ‘we want to be going in this direction,’ and your having to have negotiations with someone who quite frankly is an absolute clown in the world of boxing, and that’s the bizzare thing.”