Matchroom Boxing exec Eddie Hearn may not get along with Jake Paul right now, but he’s picking “The Problem Child” over Tommy Fury.
On Wednesday’s The MMA Hour, Hearn said Fury, the half-brother of heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury, is “unbelievably limited” and will crack under the pressure of Paul’s mental warfare.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful when I say deluded, but [Paul] is deluded to a point that when he steps in the ring, he thinks he does have that ability,” Hearn said of the Feb. 24 boxing match. “And that’s important, because mindset is everything in the fight game, and I know you’ve got to have ability, but mentally, he’s pretty robust.
“Like, he genuinely thinks that he’s a world-class fighter, and that’s part of battle sometimes in fights. And mentally, he’ll break Tommy Fury.”
Hearn still doesn’t think the world of Paul’s skills, and the two are still embroiled in a lawsuit stemming from Paul’s accusation of Matchroom Boxing fixing fights. That hasn’t kept the two from being in business to co-promote a Saturday title fight between champ Amanda Serrano, who’s promoted by the Paul-backed Most Valuable Promotions, and Matchroom’s Erika Cruz. If Serrano is successful, she could move on to rematch undisputed lightweight champ Katie Taylor in Dublin this fall.
“We’re not letting our relationship ... get in the way of opportunities for the fighters, and we’d be idiots if we did, and we certainly wouldn’t be doing the right job for our clients,” Hearn explained. “At the end of the day, Jake said some things that he shouldn’t have, he refused to apologize, and this is the way I chose to deal with it, because the other option is just to go and knock him out, which is not the way we conduct business, and we have a reputation in the sport that spans 40 years.”
When it comes to the YouTuber turned boxer’s ceiling in the sport, the promoter still believes it falls far short of Canelo Alvarez, the star Paul has confidently declared he’ll beat. But Hearn also credits Paul for avoiding another UFC veteran, whatever the younger Fury’s shortcomings are in and outside of the ring.
“Tommy Fury is unbelievably limited, right? But he is a fighter,” Hearn said. “He is a boxer. So, all the criticism about Jake is, ‘You’ve never fought a boxer.’ He’s about to – not a very good one, but still a boxer.
“For Tommy Fury, it’s just a bit embarrassing. Like, if he if he was to lose. It’s embarrassing, full stop, to lose to Jake – that’s the reality for a boxer. I mean, I’d be embarrassed if I lost to Jake Paul, and I would.
“But still, he’s not very good, but this is where we always have our argument, because he genuinely thinks he could fight Canelo Alvarez and win. This is what we fought about, but at the end of the day, you gotta back yourself.”
The Paul vs. Fury matchup fell apart on two separate occasions before being booked for Feb. 26 at Diriyah Arena, Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Paul and Fury got physical in the ring after this past Saturday’s Artur Beterbiev vs Anthony Yarde event in London.
The scene was a stark contrast from hours earlier, when Paul made nice with Tyson Fury backstage. Hearn said when it came to mental warfare, the gap between the heavyweight boxing champ and Paul was no contest.
“It ain’t his world,” said Hearn. “A fighter, if someone did that and they felt under threat, they would be up, and then like, they’ll be going at it. So the way that Jake talks about personally about stuff like Tommy Fury fight, you gotta be careful, not necessarily with Tommy Fury, but there’s a fine line in that world between something going badly wrong.
“But I think he’ll mess with Tommy mentally, and I think, I just think by the time they get in the ring, if they do get in the ring, I think Tommy will be defeated before the fight even takes place. And I think Jake Paul will win by knockout.”
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