“It’s big, isn’t it?” Eddie Hearn said of the potential offered by Australia’s boxing scene.
“I have to be honest – I walked in today and thought, ‘What the fuck’.”
Hearn was speaking at the Jai Opetaia-David Nica weigh-in ceremony at the Gold Coast Convention Center in Queensland, which was attended by the public and media.
This is Matchroom’s first promotion in this space since October 2022, and they saw the value in this space earlier. Opetaia-Nyika is a joint event with Australia’s Tasman Fighters, who will stage George Kambosos Jnr’s first 140-pound boxing match in Sydney on March 22.
Liam Paro-Brock Jarvis represents Matchroom and broadcaster DAZN’s first foray into the Australian market. Before Hearn agreed co-promotional terms with Tasman Fighters for Opetaia, Justise Huney, Tremoana Jr. and Connor Wallace, they had deals with Parlo, Skye Nico Much of the success of Wilson, Dempsey McKeon and others came overseas.
Despite Opetaia-Nyika’s commitment, with 5,000 spectators watching the entertaining penalty shootout, Australia’s top boxer fought in his home country for the first time since defeating Mairis Briedis in July 2022 and was beaten in a playoff A very important competition in Australia against opponents from New Zealand.
Oppetaya-Nika is also backed by heavyweight Teremoana Jnr, who is making his first domestic boxing appearance since ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and another increasingly attractive weight The latest in the career of grade 5 player Justis Huni.
Kambosos Jr. was signed before Parow relinquished his IBF junior middleweight title to Richardson Hitchens in December, a fact reflected by Parow-Hitchens in Puerto Rico at the time , that despite Matchroom’s ambitions in Australia, their progress has been slow.
The seemingly ever-present Hearn has to admit that the logistical challenges posed by the distance from his base in Essex, England, will always be enormous. He will also be further tested by leading Kambosos Junior, who has failed miserably in his last three matches in his homeland, to promotion.
“I get excited when I enter new markets,” he continued to BoxingScene. “We do about six shows a year in Mexico – and I love those shows because they’re actually happy to see us when we come here [to Australia]“The game room is right here – it’s awesome.” It’s actually a good feeling and there’s a lot of energy here.
“When you sometimes go to the UK – or even the US – it’s just another show, you know what I mean? Here – obviously Saudi Arabia [Arabia] And – Mexico. Puerto Rico is also fun. We went to Italy and Spain – we had some difficulties in those markets, but I still had a lot of fun there. I think this has a lot of potential.
“This global vision – you see a lot of other promoters saying, ‘We’re going to take this global’, but I’ve been doing this for five years. This is only our second show in Australia and now we’re going Two shows in two and a half months, playing in Sydney with Kambosos.
“We’d like to have at least four shows a year here, I think it’s a good market. I really do. They know their boxing. Look at the turnout – I think there’s a lot of potential.”
Hearn’s attempt to attract investment from the Australian government to help Paro against Kambosos, Devin Haney or other opponents has been thwarted in his defense of the title. There had been plans to have Nicholson, Hooney and possibly even Johnny Fisher – a British heavyweight popular in Australia – appear on the same bill.
Nicholson and Fisher played an undercard match in Saudi Arabia, just as Opetaia and Huni had done before. Parro lost to Hitchens in his first defense of the title.
Tasman Fighter’s Mick Francis has spoken out two days ahead of Opetaia-Nika and expressed his desire to continue hosting the world-leading lightweight competition in Australia. As Hearn has repeatedly stressed, the intentions and potential were as transparent as when Opetaia and Nika went wildly at each other on Wednesday night, but until then Hearn had traveled to Australia and back in four days. These days, we It really sets the direction for Matchroom’s newest division.
“He’s the No. 1 boxer in Australia right now,” he said of the 29-year-old Opetaia. “So we need to get him here. Obviously the money is very different and fighting here is the same as in Saudi and that’s what they’re interested in. But he jumped at the chance to fight here. To be fair, it’s A different kind of pressure – I don’t think it’s easy.
“Sometimes – I find AJ [Anthony Joshua] Again, AJ’s best performance was in Saudi Arabia. And then you start to think, does this have anything to do with him fighting in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium and him being pulled left, right and center all week in London? It would be interesting to see how [Opetaia] Go here.
“question [with attracting investment from the Australian government] It’s them who want time. They want nine months to prepare, which is hard to do in boxing. A three month delivery time is difficult to achieve. This is really frustrating. This week I met someone from Queensland. I think they are looking for a massive fight, but what is a massive fight? A massive fight like Tim Tszyu vs. Terence Crawford or Kambosos vs. Gervonta Davis Davis).
“They want to – just like they do [Devin] Honey, just like them [Vasiliy] Lomachenko. For them, the measure of value is international visitors. So sometimes an all-Australian match doesn’t have the same value as an internationally renowned player.
“It’s a big problem for the Australian boxing community – that’s why you see a lot of Australian boxers moving overseas, like the top boxers… you see Tim Tsiyu end up going to America and training there; Kai Nicholson is gone. You just can’t do sparring. Australian boxers want to compete internationally and train internationally, but it does excite you. It gets a little more dynamic, but the problem is bringing the opponent in; bringing in the sparring partner. It’s really difficult.
“I still think Paro vs Kambosos is a big fight. Liam will be back around April and then we’ll see if the Kambossos fight happens later in the year.”
Within minutes of the latest career wins for Hooney and Trey Moana Jr., Hearn, who saw Anthony Joshua ascend to the world heavyweight title, praised their ability to follow in Joshua’s footsteps. For all their promise, it’s still hard to believe they’ll be as successful as Joshua, but unlike Oppetaya, who beat Brady by resisting a broken jaw so impressively Si, establishing himself as the world’s leading lightweight. They are fighters that Hearn has been working with since before he entered the title picture. They are the projects – smaller features within a rather broad project – that need to continue to be main event attractions if the combined efforts of Matchroom, Tasman Fighters and DAZN are to be successful.
“It’s huge,” Hearn replied when asked how much value these were to his plans. “A huge amount. We don’t have a huge amount of heavyweight stock other than AJ. Huni is already top 15 in the world,” he said. As far as I’m concerned, I think he actually has a lot of potential and Tremoana is a serious fighter as well – give him six months and he’s going to be a huge player. ‘s superstar.
“No [I don’t intend on moving him as aggressively as Matchroom moved Joshua]. Just really active. It’s fast in terms of time, but not fast in terms of fights because I want to fight him seven or eight times this year. He is now 6-0. Once we got him to 10-0, the game started to get a little exciting. The hardest thing was finding his match. Especially for an Australian show. He will also box in Sydney on March 22.
“we need to [the local assistance of Francis and Tasman Fighters]. When I first came here it was more, ‘We’re coming to Australia; ‘Matchroom Australia’ and stuff like that. Ultimately, you need a quality partner who can do a lot of the legwork, and as you can see, Mick did an excellent job. “
The first thing Hearn is likely to adapt to is the resistance he’ll encounter when trying to expand Matchroom further. Once, as an inexperienced promoter in the UK, he tried to compete with Hall of Fame inductee Frank Warren, and in the United States, with established giants such as PBC, Top Rank and Golden Boy, but The fact is, Fox Sports-backed Fox Sports has always been the biggest show in town from an Australian perspective. There’s also the reality that despite Opetaia’s success and Tim Tszyu’s back-to-back devastating defeats in 2024, Tszyu, loyal to No Limit, remains the biggest star in Australian boxing.
“[Tszyu’s] It’s been fighting at a very high level as well,” Hearn said. “DAZN is just getting started, really. now their [potential] Acquisition of Foxtel [the owners of Fox Sport] It’s going to be a lot of fun. But Fox is a great broadcaster. But at the same time I think DAZN has found its footing.
“They’ve had great results, especially with Fury Usyk, so they have a good platform. Kambosos… we’ll keep going.
“It’s just different [in Australia]. When you go here, there are only four or five media outlets. When we did it in the UK, there were 30 fucking people, from the BBC to some fucking guy who had his own YouTube channel. There are a lot of British people here and I was mobbed in the street. In fact, it’s a very nice feeling. “Oh my God – are you fucking here? Keep going, mate. It’s a bit like when we first started in England. People are really supportive instead of just saying ‘Oh, fucking Eddie Hearn’ …’.
Asked whether he had the same profile and influence on social media as he had for a long time in the UK and US, he replied: “Yes, definitely. More here than in the US.
“In the United States, I had established my brand. I still had a long way to go, but when I first went to the United States, no one knew who I was. Then I started promoting Canelo [Saul Alvarez] – Once you do, everything changes overnight.
“Everyone in the Australian boxing community sees me every week. I’m not always in Australia – it’s really part of the plan behind me to build the brand.”
