My thoughts: Their domestic stable (Anthony Joshua, Jack Catterall, Sunny Edwards, Dalton Smith, Josh Taylor, Katie Taylor) is the weakest it's been for a long time and much weaker than Queensberry's (Tyson Fury, Daniel Dubois, Hamzah Sheeraz, Nick Ball, Anthony Cacace, Fabio Wardley). However, Matchroom's global / international stable is the best it's ever been and arguably the strongest in the world (Jaron Ennis, Jesse Rodriguez, Shakur Stevenson, Dmitry Bivol, Jai Opetaia, Israil Madrimov). They've had their best year in the US probably since doing shows over there. That's why before they would have looked to sign all the British Olympians straight-away but in this cycle they only seem to be signing Pat Brown and then 4 other international Olympians. Apparently their shows for the first 3/4 months of 2024 in the UK and Ireland will be: - Dalton Smith for the European Title in Sheffield - Lewis Crocker vs Paddy Donovan in Belfast - Josh Taylor in Glasgow - Johnny Fisher vs winner / loser of Solomon Dacres vs David Adeleye for the English Title Doesn't sound the best but would be better than the shows at the start of 2024 and I reckon all those shows sell really well apart from the Sheffield one?
Not much to disagree with here. I'm not sure Taylor will be the big draw in Glasgow he was in the past, but Scots will always come out to a degree, maybe just not quite Hydro sellout levels. The prominence of Dalton Smith baffles me. Good boxer but couldn't draw flies even in his home town and if it wasn't for the Azim nonsense he would be even further under the radar. Agree with all you say about Matchroom USA; it's looked for a while like the domestic stable is really just filler content to fulfil DAZN rights, and Queensbery has been left to get on with it. Maybe if QP ends up on DAZN, that will clear things even more.
Eddie claims he's going to focus a bit more on UK shows next year...needs to pull his finger out and sign some domestic prospects, very thin on heavyweights domestically, I wonder if he will go for Orie? His global stable is however very impressive, seems to he signing a lot of aussie and kiwi fighters so he's clearly looking at the Australian market. Rumours he's signing Marco Verde will be a big coup from the Olympics but I'm hearing nothing about UK talent. I know Pat Brown and Ramtin Musah are signed with MR.
Delicious Orie might be going to WWE apparently. I think Hearn said he was more interested in signing the Australian Teremoana Teremoana from the heavyweights at the olympics. He’s signed to Matchroom apparently as well as one of the Uzbek Olympians. I think Azim beats Dalton Smith to be honest and unsure why Shalom wasn’t keen to make the fight. Smith did look super impressive stopping Jose Zepeda inside 6 rounds last time though. To be fair though Smith sold more in Sheffield against Zepeda (about 4k) than Azim did against Ohara Davies at the Copperbox (about 2k). That’s surprising to me because Azim seems like he’s a bigger name than Dalton Smith and he’s like 5 years younger too.
It's surprising you say! That will be because it isn't true. If you are going to lie at least make it believable! The problem you have is that although you may not go to shows you are talking to a forum of people who do regularly attend fight nights. I was at the Copperbox for that fight (as i posted at the time), it wasn't full but there was about 5k in there. Smiths tickets for Zepeda were all over bluelight for free in weeks leading up to the fight, masses were given away........but let me guess.......'they got a site fee,innit'
It's funny how the big UK promoters sign the English fighters first Yet the Scottish and Welsh fighters.. Sean Lazzerini, Sam Hickey, Reese Lynch, Ioan Croft, Garan Croft are yet to be signed. Definitely a English priority/bias going on. Might be to do with viewing figures.
Oh that's news to me, good.! I literally just posted about him a second ago lol in another thread. BUT he will be marketed as English. he was born and raised in Southampton, has a full english accent etc. Just represented Wales through his welsh Mum.