Eddie Hearn has responded to Simon Jordan calling him a ‘coward’ in the aftermath of Conor Benn’s failed drugs test.
Hearn came under fire recently for his handling of the incident that saw his scheduled bout with Chris Eubank Jr fall through.
Initially, Hearn and his co-promoter, Kalle Sauerland of Wasserman Promotions, had pushed to make the fight go ahead, despite the BBBoC (British Boxing Board of Control) deciding against sanctioning the bout.
Eventually the fight was called off and Hearn and Sauerland held a press conference to explain the situation, but they did not take any questions from the media.
This caused Jordan to brand Hearn as a ‘coward’ for his lack of willingness to be scrutinised and the promoter responded to these comments on Wednesday.
In an interview with Pro Boxing Fans, Hearn took aim at Jordan for his time as Crystal Palace owner when he took the club into administration in 2010. “Simon’s Simon. He’s had a very brutal fall from grace, but he’s very good at his new job on the radio and I think he’s there to be controversial,” he said.
“I saw him with Graeme Souness [on Monday on talkSPORT] and no one has reached out to me personally to go on his show.
“[Breakfast host] Laura Woods did, to go on the Breakfast show and I did [on Wednesday morning], so I’m not going to be rushing round to see Simon Jordan to give him views.
“But, at the same time I never have a problem with answering his questions. He should know and I think he will know that certain situations legally require that I’m not allowed to discuss it and one of those was Conor Benn’s upcoming case.
“I can’t be talking on behalf of Conor Benn and prejudicing his hearing, so there are some things I can’t say.
“I can’t talk about the information that Conor Benn will release this week around his testing, but what I’m always prepared to talk about is what we’re accountable for and the process that unfolded during that period with us and the BBBoC, so never a problem to answer questions.”
Jordan responded to this a day later, live on talkSPORT, saying: “I like Eddie Hearn, I think he’s a first class promoter in a lot of what he does and I don’t have a particular patronage with [rival promoters] Frank Warren or Ben Shalom, but the bottom line is they may talk to us more because [Hearn] doesn’t make himself available.
“He tells people that he wasn’t invited on our show when he was invited repeatedly, but he doesn’t want to come on this show because he knows that when he’s given a question, the answer that comes back will be interrogated.
“The idea that he can’t speak to the Conor Benn situation because of a legal reasons, that’s fine, let’s not talk about Conor Benn, let’s talk about your conduct.
“Let’s talk about a blue chip promoter that seems to be in the camp of allowing a fight to go on, a fight that had a real duty of care and responsibility behind it because it was a catchweight fight with a lot of controversy about the weights.
“So, we all needed to make sure these fighters were protected and you appear to have been in the camp of allowing that fight to go on when you knew on September 23 that a drugs test had been failed.”
Jordan finished by saying: “Eddie and his cohorts that aren’t answering questions and hiding behind legal issues, well then leave Conor out of it and lets talk about you and what you did and how you were behind some of the things that were going on.
“Then we can clear up your behaviour because you are supposed to hold this sport in the highest moral condition that it can be in.”
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News Summary:
- ‘He’s had a very brutal fall from grace’
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