Hearn Slams The AJ Criticism, Crawford’s Mad Rant And Reaction

Eddie Hearn lashed out at talkSPORT journalist Jim White for his perceived favoritism of Tyson Fury at the expense of Anthony Joshua.

Joshua had recently been critical of the station, as he highlighted the different narratives surrounding him and Fury.

‘AJ’ pointed out how his 12-round fight with Jermaine Franklin was criticized. In contrast, Fury going the distance with Otto Wallin was not perceived the same way.

Instead, the perception was that it was praised, as he fought through a massive cut above the eye to get the win. 

And it all came to a head with Hearn over a discussion surrounding Joshua’s upcoming fight with Dillian Whyte.

The two British fighters will run things back following their first bout in 2015. That is when ‘AJ’ won by a seventh-round knockout.

As Hearn referred to it as a ‘risky’ fight, White reminded the promoter over how easy Fury had beaten Whyte. 

Hearn’s Reaction

White: “You say it’s risky business Eddie, but Fury made it look easy, didn’t he?”

Hearn “You seem to think that Tyson Fury is God, so he’s gonna make anything look easy.”

White: “I don’t think Tyson’s God.”

Hearn: “Let’s have it right, apparently Anthony Joshua’s overrated, he’s finished, he’s at the end of his career, he should retire.”

Terence Crawford lost his cool as he got into a heated exchange with someone in the crowd during his pre-fight presser with Errol Spence Jr. 

The presser saw both fighters, and coaches trading shots at each other with a crowd that was equally vocal.

While Crawford is known for being calm and collected, the WBO welterweight champion uncharacteristically broke character to lash out at a member of the crowd. 

And it all came to a head when ‘Bud’ reacted angrily to a member of the crowd heckling him as he was trying to answer a question.

As a result, Crawford repeated the N-word, as well as calling the person a ‘b***h,’ as things escalated. 

Crawford Loses His Cool

Crawford: “You ain’t going to bring nothing’, while also asking the individual, ‘you a b****. Who the f*** you talking to?’

“Real n****** don’t talk n*****, and you talking too much. You want some attention?”

Nevertheless, Crawford did try to de-escalate things later in the presser by warning about the potential of things getting exacerbated. And in doing so, Crawford sought to ease things between the two families. 

“Listen, my family, Errol‘s family, man you got to calm down brother, because listen, things can get real sticky, real quick.

And then everybody will say, ‘this is what we do everytime that we come out’. Social media, social media, my a**.

“Bro, listen, just like you doing all that talking, it can turn deadly real quick, but on both sides. So why not support your fighter?

“Let’s come together and make this event a success,” Crawford 

In response, Spence referred to the WBO champion as being too emotional. So much so that he was intent on beating Crawford so bad that a rematch would be off the table. 

Although Spence downplayed whether that mindset would have an impact on fight night, Crawford doubled down on his comments by stating he would not tolerate any disrespect. 

“I’m not emotional nothing. I’m just not going to keep letting disrespectful things slide. I try to go up there and be the bigger person and try to de-escalate both sides of the playing field, and that obviously didn’t happen. So you got to meet force with force sometimes,” Crawford 

Despite this being the case, Derrick James was not too impressed by what he had seen. The trainer was adamant that Crawford’s comments may have escalated things, as well questioning his mindset. 

“Really, he’s [Crawford] the only fighter to be put on pay-per-view and taken off PPV. So, he’s never really ever been here before. He’s never been in a big event,” Derrick said about Crawford. “Remember when he fought Mean Machine [Egidijus Kavaliauskas]? They put him on PPV and then took him off PPV. It’s never happened before. That’s history.

“That’s crazy. You’re threatening people. Who does that? Real killers don’t do that. When you know how people feel about you. What kind of real killer does that? You threaten a room full of people on television. Do you know how silly you sound? ‘I’m going to kill you. I don’t want to have to kill you.’ Are you for real? That’s not de-escalation,” James

Ultimately, the time for talking is almost over. Joshua, Spence, and Crawford’s career will be defined by their next fights. But if they manage to back up their words with their performances, then their legacy moving forward will be just fine. Time will tell how it all plays out moving forward.

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