Eddie Hearn has insisted he is sticking around boxing after a social media prankster managed to convince a number of fans he was retiring.
A Twitter user pretending to be talkSPORT reporter Michael Benson tricked fans into believing that Hearn was giving up his job as Matchroom Boxing boss, but Hearn has confirmed that it isn't true.
He was asked about the fake tweet during an appearance on the DAZN Boxing show, where he confirmed that it was from a parody account, which has since been deleted.
The tweet had claimed that a rumoured deal between DAZN and BT Sport would see Hearn take a backseat in a seemingly utterly baseless rumour.
"I've had everyone messaging me saying I'm retiring!" Hearn laughed during the show. "You wouldn't believe how many messages I've had.
"People are going 'what? You're joking', but you have to be on the lookout for an extra 'n' on the account name.
"I'm not retiring yet, no."
Hearn and DAZN recently announced their slate of shows for the start of 2022, including a shock world title fight for Josh Warrington against Kiko Martinez and a trilogy bout between Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez.
The second quarter of the year will also see Hearn promote the world heavyweight world title rematch between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk as well as a link-up with Jake Paul to co-promote Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano for the lightweight title.
“I expect that fight to take place in April, early May,” Hearn said of Joshua's career-defining second shot at Usyk.
“I expect that fight to take place in the UK. I spoke to Alex Krassyuk [Usyk’s promoter] last week.
“AJ, although he never left training, will be in full training soon and will probably make it clear who that new team will include, where that camp will take place - it’s a very important time for him.”
The Taylor-Serrano bout for the undisputed lightweight title has been billed as the biggest in women's boxing history.
And with Paul lending his unique brand of promoting to the event, Hearn believes that even the potential competing bout between Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez to unify at junior lightweight won't come close in terms of viewers.
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“When you’ve got a fight as big as Taylor and Serrano, and you've got myself and Jake Paul, I don’t worry too much about other fights," Hearn continued.
“Valdez vs Stevenson is a tremendous fight, but it’s not going to cause the same kind of noise as Taylor vs. Serrano with me and Jake Paul.
"When you see the noise around Madison Square Garden around a legacy-defining fight, not just for women’s boxing, but for boxing, I’m fine.
“You can’t try to work around other fights because next week there's another fight. What you can do is get smart, and ask Top Rank ‘What time are you going? You go 10pm, we go 11pm.’
“We’re not moving for a potential fight that might happen - is Stevenson vs. Valdez bigger than Taylor vs. Serrano? No, not in my opinion.
"This is going to be a showstopper, this is going to create shockwaves around the world.”
