The boxing schedule has not disappointed so far in 2022.
A bevy of bangers has already filled the calendar in the year’s first five months, and the summer slate is surely set to be just as scintillating.
One matchup in particular that is heating up won’t be featured in a ring anytime soon.
A back and forth beef involving two of the sport’s top power brokers is brewing in recent weeks between Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe and Matchroom Boxing head Eddie Hearn.
Ellerbe just finished promoting a sellout show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York headlined by Gervonta Davis’s sixth-round knockout of Rolando Romero, and he’s now picking up right where he left off by lobbing more jabs at Hearn after Hearn recently said he’s 100 times bigger Ellerbe.
“He started this foolishness saying that Floyd [Mayweather] was jealous of Canelo [Alvarez],” Ellerbe told BoxingScene.com in an interview. “I said what I needed to say about him, and these are facts. This guy was handed a budget well over a billion dollars and he blew right through it, and he has nothing to show for it because he doesn’t know what the f—- he’s doing. That’s an irrefutable fact. DAZN has been a failure in the United States, and that’s not my opinion. Those are facts.
“He thinks he’s bigger than the fighters. He only talks about himself. He’s a f——- clown. If he spent more time building his fighters, maybe he would have had success in the United States. But you can’t have success when you don’t know what the f— you’re doing. He doesn’t know the US markets. He thinks he can come around here with a big checkbook and write checks, and that it was all going to be gravy. He’s been spinning his wheels and wasting money because he doesn’t have any stars. We know where all the stars are at. All of the big-name fighters, we know where they’re at. I don’t have to say it. All of the other promoters are laughing at him because he is full of sh!t and full of himself. It doesn’t work like that. But one thing I’m happy about is that a number of fighters got paid that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten paid. So I am happy about that. I’m all for the fighters winning.
“I don’t play this kind of game. I’m a grown ass man. I don’t have a British sense of humor. It’s different from where I’m from. He thinks this sh!t is cute and funny. I don’t play that. I don’t want to spend any more of my time talking about this clown.”
Ellerbe’s parting shot comes after he called out Hearn for failing to retain the rights to promote Devin Haney, who recently signed a multi-fight deal with DiBella Entertainment and Top Rank that begins with him fighting George Kambosos Jr. in Australia.
“If I don’t know what I’m doing, why am I 100 times bigger than Leonard Ellerbe? Why are we the biggest global promotional company in the world bar none? And Leonard Ellerbe is not even relevant actually in the boxing industry,” Hearn said before Ellerbe offered his response.
“When you talk about the top promoters in the world, do you mention Leonard Ellerbe? Let’s be honest, not in a million years. He then comes out and says ‘oh, Canelo Alvarez only done 300,000 [pay-per-view] buys.’ Double it and add more and that’s how many buys [it did] and if you want, speak to DAZN and they’ll confirm it as well. This guy is hilarious. He is so angry, he has lost his mind. I need to take him out for a nice cup of tea, Leonard Ellerbe. But, how can you say this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing? Look at me, we’re the biggest in the game. What are you? Nothing, you work for Floyd Mayweather.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com.