Eddie Hearn has criticised Frank Warren for attempting to defend the quality of the undercard for Tyson Fury 's world title clash with Dillian Whyte.
Fans were disappointed in the lack of talent on the undercard when it was officially announced last week. Other than Fury's brother and Love Island star Tommy Fury, no standout names are competing before the main event. Matchroom boss Hearn thinks the poor undercard is a result of Warren's Queensbury Promotions and Bob Arum's Top Rank spending all their budget on the domestic clash between Fury and Whyte.
"He's paid a lot of money for the fight," Hearn told iFL TV. "Sometimes you buy a Rolls Royce you can't afford to put the petrol in.If you're buying a ticket, you want to go and see a good night of boxing.
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Warren hoped to book top British fighters such as Anthony Yarde, Dennis McCann on Joe Joyce on the undercard but was unable to do so. Hearn thinks his rival promoter should have been more forthcoming in discussing the undercard instead of trying to defend the quality of fights.
"Sometimes you can attempt to justify an undercard, but what Frank should have said was 'I ain't got the money, because I've spent it all on the main event so unfortunately this is all you're going to get'," Hearn added. "Everyone might have gone 'fair enough', but then he's telling us that this fight is a 'great fight' and it's '50/50'. No one's heard of these people, I feel like on this platform you should showcase your great talent."
Some of the fighters on the undercard include former British featherweight champion Anthony Cacace, who fights Jonathan Romero, and Fury's sparring partner David Adeleye, who fights Chris Healey. Warren admitted Queensbury put all their budget into the main event after landing a record-breaking $41million bid for the fight, but insisted they are several "cracking fights" on the undercard of the Wembley event.
"We’ve put all our money into the main event, but we’ve got a good fighting undercard. There’s a couple of good cracking fights on there. It is what it is. Obviously, it’s a disappointment," he said. "We want to deliver every time but at the end of the day we are constricted by the fact that we bid $41million for the fight. "If we bid $32million, as Matchroom did, we’d have more money to play with.”
