When discussing the situation, Hearn acknowledged Smith’s position as the WBO mandatory challenger.
“Now he’s ordered to fight Callum Smith. People are talking about Beterbiev 3 or Benavidez, but Callum has to get his chance, so we’ll see what happens,” Hearn told Matchroom Boxing’s YouTube channel.
“We will talk to Dmitri, Vadim and the team. If he does choose to fight Beterbiev again or fight Benavidez, then it will be Callum Smith against Buatsi to fight it back for the world title, which will be a massive fight.”
Hearn stopped short of introducing Smith as Bivol’s obvious next opponent. Instead, he immediately discussed alternative scenarios and openly outlined a fallback plan involving Smith and Joshua Buatsi if Bivol decided to take a bigger fight elsewhere.
Usually a promoter will beat the drum with a mandatory challenger, demand the fight and try to upset the champion. Instead, Hearn immediately moved to: ‘Well, if he doesn’t want it, we’ll just have this massive domestic fight for a vacant belt.
It shows no confidence that Bivol will actually take the Callum Smith fight, and frankly, why would he? Bivol just got back into the groove against Eifert and wants those massive legacy nights against Benavidez or the Beterbiev Trilogy. Hearn probably knows this, so instead of fighting against the tide, he’s already building a bridge for when Bivol inevitably drops the WBO belt.
Matchroom wins anyway. If Smith gets Bivol, great. If Bivol vacates, Hearn gets a massive, stadium-level UK blockbuster in Smith vs. Buatsi 2 without sharing the cake with external promoters.
