Within hours of Eddie Hearn admitting he was “pretty devastated,” Kellerman used his Game Over podcast to scoff at the reaction and declare the move proof that boxing’s old guard is finished.
“They went to Zuffa and called me by name,” Kellerman said. “They chased after Zuffa and talked wildly about me.”
He saved the cleanest shot for Hearn’s toe shift.
“You can’t talk about how on Monday, ‘these guys suck, and they’re nothing, and I’m so much better,’ and Tuesday cry about a loss! Throughout broadcast history or even media history, whenever there’s been an expansion, boxing has expanded with it.”
It was delivered with the cadence that Kellerman has always favored, part sermon, part scoreboard. The implication was simple. Hearn spoke harshly about Zuffa. Then he lost a warrior. That’s why Zuffa wins.
Kellerman went further and singled out Zuffa as the next evolutionary step in boxing’s broadcast history. Printing press. Radio. Television. Cable. Current. Now this.
“Guys like Eddie Hearn or Oscar De La Hoya insulting and insulting Dana White and Nick Khan, I don’t know why you would pick those two guys to fight. And me. Me too, you really don’t want that.”
“Here’s the new game,” he said. “What they didn’t understand is that the game is already over. They just don’t know it. Game over.”
It’s a sweeping conclusion to a single welterweight signing.
Kellerman praises Zuffa while skipping the Saudi footnote
Benn leaving Matchroom is significant. He was a headline welterweight, a fighter Matchroom built into a draw and leaned on during the fallout from the failed tests. Hearn supported him through the trials, kept him active overseas and absorbed the public heat. When a promoter invests that kind of time, energy and reputation in a fighter and then sees him sign elsewhere, it hits hard.
Kellerman treated it as a regime change.
Zuffa Boxing is backed by Turki Alalshikh and Sela Sport by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That reality did not get much airtime in the “new age” speech. Nor is the question of what follows if one promotional structure starts sending championship routes under its own banner.
Kellerman once made his name challenging promoters. Now he defends one, aggressively, as he swings at the competition.
Signing Benn shows spending power. This does not end the promoter business. It does not dissolve sanctioning bodies. It does not rewrite how ranking and obligations work.
Declaring “game over” ensures good podcast audio. Boxing rarely ends so neatly.
