Shortest Reign Ever of a World Champion?

I agree, it's been a bit of a nightmare for old Eddie and Matchroom.

Although not on DAZN, from a Matchroom point of view.. AJ is 32 years old and loses his belts, he isn't the favourite for the rematch.

Whyte is 33 years old and is finally has a WBC shot but it may well be against Fury and Whyte won't be favourite for that.

Galahad is what? 31 years old? A lot of these fighters are not young, even the likes of Leigh Wood is 33 years old, Chris Billam Smith 31 years old, Anthony Fowler is 30, lots of these Matchroom fighters are getting on.

Just go through the stable and look at their ages, it's actually quite surprising.

The women Eddie is throwing at us are starting to lose, Courtenay and Harper lost world titles.

Natasha Jonas has left to go to Sky, so has Savannah Marshall and Katie Taylor is 35 years old and is looking like she's on the slide and coming to the end of her career.



Then you look to the future, the younger fighters coming through and it's Conor Benn and Campbell Hatton in terms of "names".

In my opinion this is why Hearn is wrapping Benn in cotton wool and won't take any real risks, won't entertain the idea of Avanesyan, it's Algieri, Broner, Khan, Brook and a list of old faded "names" and Benn will fight these types for as long as he can before fans start turning away, the noise gets too loud and only then they will take a genuine calculated gamble.

I don't see much of a bright future for Hearn and Matchroom, Hearn is just going to ride it until the wheels fall Off and I think they are starting to wobble.

 

Eddie is now down to just 3 World Champions.

Okolie
K Taylor
Cameron.

Looking a little bare is the WC cupboard for Mr Hearn.

Game Changed (not how Eddie envisaged it would do I'll bet).

The pressure will ramp up (imo) on him, after Dec 11th, to finally match Conor (No Titles) Benn into a proper meaningful fight where the opponent will actually fight back. See Junior v Williams as an opponent whom will gladly fight back (on the same night!).

Who'd have thought a couple of years ago or so, certainly after the Matty Askin fight, that Hearn would be hanging his hat on (the much improved admittedly) Okolie!!

 

Barry Awad

Lovely boxer. Lovely to watch. Ultimately, the contest was so easy that he essentially put himself to sleep!

 

I was thinking the exact same thing, Boxing is a funny old sport.

4 years ago if someone had told me Matchroom would have only 1 male world champion, and that would (of all people) be Lawrence Okolie I would have laughed.

I think as always there's a lot of factors at play here, and to an extent part of it is inevitable. Saunders was always a paper champion at 168 and was more than happy to cash out, Smith was lucky to have a belt at all after Ryder fight and again was absolutely desperate to cash out even more so than Saunders as he was finished at 168 anyway. Warrington for me was partially mismanagement and then bad luck in a cherry pick gone horrifically wrong. Doesn't look like he has a lot left at top level now. Galahad- who could have seen that coming?? AJ, I am absolutely certain Hearn would privately have told AJ not to fight Usyk, but ultimately it's the fighters and coaches decision in that scenario. He was the favorite in most peoples eyes but got the game plan disastrously wrong and I'm not quire sure where that leaves him now as he was beaten comprehensively.

Brook/Yafai feel like a long time ago now, so I haven't even went into that in detail.

Dillian Whyte is never winning a world title IMO, he won't beat Fury if that fight even happens and doesn't beat any of the top fighters from the next generation if/when the belts splinter.

There's a strong chance Buatsi will win a belt next year, but other than that I don't see anything changing sadly. We're at the end of one cycle and the next one has not even started so there could be quite a gap in between.

 

Another case of "when cherry picks go wrong"

 

Galahad’s 98 days is irrelevant, he was an alphabelt holder.
Randolph Turpin, undisputed middleweight champion held the title for 64 days between his win and loss to Sugar Ray.
Documentary 64 Day Hero, tells his story.

 

On nights like saturday you just can't beat the sport of beautiful brutality