Eddie Hearn has idea of having Dillian Whyte face Alexander Povetkin in August, and then Andy Ruiz Jr. in November.
Hearn says he’ll increase the existing $4 million offer to Ruiz to $5.
“When I send stuff like that to Dillian, I know there’s a chance that it goes out on social media,” said Hearn to IFL TV. “Just to make it simple for you, what happened was, we made Andy Ruiz an offer to fight Dillian Whyte in England.”
“This was some time ago. The answer was, “No.” To be fair, it wasn’t a great offer. It was the max we could afford for a fight in the U.K. Then we spoke to DAZN, we spoke to Dillian. I said, “Look, we can do the fight in the U.S.. and it’s massive.” I then made an offer to Tom Brown and Luis Decubas for $4 million.”
“We basically could have gone up to $5 million. I spoke to Luis DeCubas and spoke to Tom Brown and alluded to that, but we NEVER made a $5 million offer in writing.”
“It was only $4 million. But to be fair, there was an argument that they knew it would be five [million], and they did. But to be fair to them, the inwriting offer to them was $4 million,” said Hearn.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘You can’t stage the big fights behind closed doors.’ I’m trying to take that perception away. I want to stage some of the big fights behind closed doors. If we wait too long, we won’t have a choice. So let’s crack on now.”
“Yes, we’re going to lose money, and yes, we’ve got to overcome this. We can’t just come back from boxing, and then we’ll bounce right back in with Whyte vs. Povetkin. If Ruiz wants to step up. For me, I have absolutely no belief that Andy Ruiz will fight Dillian Whyte for $5 million or at all.”
“It’s not even Andy Ruiz. I think they’ll probably want to keep him on PBC, and I’ve made a song and dance out of it. I like Andy Ruiz. He’ll fight anyone. He’s not scared of Dillian Whyte, but there’s an offer for him if he wants to fight.”
“In a scenario with Povetkin, that might be one where we could take another fight. Andy Ruiz is in camp in Portugal. He’s ready to fight in July. So we’re up for doing Povetkin in July or August, and Ruiz in November.”
“Anything is possible right now. Certain contracts will involve different clauses, and some fights can fall away, and some fights can be rescheduled,” said Hearn.
