In some boxing news, Eddie Hearn has demanded that changes be made within the sport of boxing in order to make it sustainable.

Hearn’s comments touch a significant part of the criticism that he has faced since working with DAZN. The Matchroom Boxing promoter was reportedly given a billion-dollar budget in order to get the best fights around and crack the American market.

And as part of that process, Hearn’s move to DAZN was done on the basis of being an alternative to PPV. Not only has that failed, but it has also resulted in DAZN adding more PPV events on top of their subscription.

Hearn has previously justified such a move on the grounds that fighters are demanding more money. And yet, at the same time, Hearn recognized that action needed to be taken against this.

Hearn On Purses

"Fighter purses are out of control, and they are not delivering on the value that the price represents. Boxing rights are very expensive. When you get it right, boxing is a huge success and rates well, delivers pay-per-view events, and arenas are full. Boxing as a business has to deliver more value to the broadcasters so they stay in the sport. The purses continue to increase, and the advisors and the managers continue to want easy fights that don’t deliver.

"We [the promoters] are the weak ones because sometimes we let them do it. We will be parting ways with fighters because some of them don’t deliver commercially on the numbers they want and some of them are not prepared to take the fights that we believe they should be taking," Hearn

Despite this being the case, Saudi Arabia’s arrival into boxing has added a new problem. The increasing purses that are now available are resulting in fighters demanding more.

That has had an impact on fights getting made. Anthony Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder failed to get made, despite optimism that it would get done in Saudi Arabia.

And given the huge purses that were being mentioned at the time, no other venue has managed to come up with suitable numbers.

Meanwhile, Tyson Fury is allegedly set to earn approximately $200 million for fighting Oleksandr Usyk and Francis Ngannou.

Those figures are ultimately not feasible for most fighters, even if the desire may be there. That is why Hearn wanted another approach.

Hearn On Fighters

"It’s like, ‘guys, you’ve had your warm-up fights – no one is interested.’ We need to make big fights. It doesn’t have to be a 50-50. It can just be competitive … fighters go stale for inactivity and having irrelevant fights. Every promoter is guilty of it, and we have to stop that … broadcasters can’t continually pay money for shows that don’t deliver," Hearn

Ultimately, boxing has seen a shift in power with fighters being able to command more. That has left promoters with either toeing the line or fighting back. And it appears that Hearn has chosen the latter, but at what cost?