Oscar De La Hoya has issued his verdict on Conor Benn’s ‘mind-boggling’ switch from Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing to Dana White’s Zuffa promotion.
It was announced just yesterday that the 29-year-old has ended his working relationship with Matchroom who, until now, had promoted him since his professional debut in 2016.
Additionally, Hearn had always been a strong ally to Benn, especially after ‘The Destroyer’ twice tested positive for clomifene ahead of his cancelled encounter with Chris Eubank Jr in 2022.
Amid his attempt to clear his name, Benn had two outings in America – against Rodolfo Orozco and Peter Dobson in 2023 and 2024, respectively – before revisiting his rivalry with Eubank last year.
Their first middleweight encounter saw him suffer a unanimous decision defeat in April, prior to his comprehensive triumph over the weight-restricted Eubank in November.
But despite Hearn standing by Benn’s side through thick and thin, the Ilford man has now decided to join rival promoter Zuffa Boxing, headed by UFC boss White.
Up to this point, the likes of Hearn and De La Hoya have been highly critical of White’s events, and indeed his plans to marginalise boxing’s four major sanctioning bodies.
It is therefore unsurprising that Golden Boy promoter De La Hoya, in an interview with IFL TV, has questioned the source of Benn’s eight-figure purse, which has reportedly been promised for his next outing.
“Eddie Hearn must be p***ed off. My god, how can they do that to Eddie Hearn? It is not right.
“I heard it’s a one-fight deal. What I don’t understand is… who is paying him [Benn]? He’s going to demand a lot of money – if it’s going to be eight figures, or whatever it might be.
“Conor Benn going to [Zuffa] is just mind-boggling for me.”
As an outfit, Zuffa Boxing is expected to ignore the sport’s world championship belts – the WBC, IBF, WBO and WBA titles – in most cases, which makes Benn’s promotional shift particularly interesting.
