Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ promoter Eddie Hearn has given up on his attempts to secure a unification fight against WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. to negotiate after balking at their requests to increase the offer by $500K to $2.2 million.
It’s hard to believe that Hearn would choose to end negotiations over $500,000, but it shows that he’s not interested in having the Norman fight Ennis. If Hearn wanted that fight, he would have come up with the money to get it over the finish line.
Boots (32-0, 29 KOs) will either defend against his IBF mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian or vacate to move up to 154. If Hearn is stubborn and adamant about Boots Ennis wanting a little more money, we’ll likely hear the same thing from the promoter when he moves up to 154. Coming events cast their shadows ahead.
Eddie blames Norman’s team for failed negotiations
“They know it (it is too late to save negotiations). These people are clueless,” Eddie Hearn told Thaboxingvoice’s YouTube channel, talks about his failed negotiations for the Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis vs. Brian Norman Jr. welterweight unification bout.
“They have no understanding of the boxing industry. They have no understanding of the boxing market. We made three offers to these guys. Even the first offer was well north of a million dollars, and people coming back, ‘Wow, Eddie Hearn offered Brian Norman $1.5 million.’ Guess what? It was much more than that.”
Hearn is being disingenuous here. His $1.7 million offer isn’t much more than the $1.5 million fans believe it is. Norman Jr. is a world champion at 147 and has the WBO belt Boots needs. Hearn doesn’t understand the boxing business because he fails his fighter Boots, and he won’t be able to increase his value because of his unwillingness to pay what the champions are asking.
Hearn’s record
Norman Jr. is not the first champion Hearn has failed to negotiate a deal with Ennis. He could not also deliver a fight against the WBA champion Eimantas Stanionis.
“Now they’re coming back because they know the IBF has set a purse bid date (for Boots vs. Karen Chukhadzhian), and according to their rules we can no longer ask for an exception for a unification. So, these guys (Team Norman) dropped the ball,” Hearn said.
Team Norman Jr. didn’t drop the ball. Hearn doesn’t want the fight because if he wanted to he would agree to the $2.2 million they are asking for. They want the $1.7 million to be bumped up to $2.2 million. This is not a huge increase.
“Let them go back and make what they made in their last fight (against Giovani Santillan on May 18 in San Diego), a hundred thousand dollars. This time they’re going to make two or three hundred thousand dollars to fight someone (#7 WBO Derreick Cuevas) that no one has ever heard of.”
Things are different now. When Norman fought Santillan, he was not a world champion. He was just a guy fighting for the WBO interim welterweight title. But now, Norman Jr. is the full WBO champion, so his purses have gone up, and what he made before doesn’t apply.
Hearn doesn’t get it, and neither do the naive fans who keep talking about what Norman used to do before he was champion. It would be like bringing up Boots Ennis’ purses before he was champion and then expecting him to make similar money now. Things have changed.
Hearn’s dismissive attitude towards Norman Jr.
“I’m not wasting my energy with these guys. All they’re trying to do is get Boots Ennis’ name. Good luck to them. Mr. Norman, or whatever his name is, you dropped the ball. You are too late. If you really wanted the fight, you dropped the ball big time, but I don’t believe you did,” Hearn said.
Notice Hearn’s attitude? He does not negotiate with Norman Jr. and shows no interest in real negotiations. He just wants them to take him up on his lowball offer, and he’s furious that they won’t.
“Adrian Clark, I’m not aware of this guy,” Hearn said of Brian Norman Jr’s manager. “If they want 1.2 (million), who on earth are they paying to give up so much money? Well, over half a million dollars for someone else (Cuevas) to fight (on November 8)?” said Hear about Norman Jr’s plan B option Cuevas if the Boots fight fails.
Eddie sounds like he doesn’t like Norman jr. or does not respect his management and appears as someone above them, like some kind of king. Hearn’s attitude sounds like he sees Norman’s team beneath him.
Ennis and hear are not on the same page
Hearn and his fighter, Boots Ennis, are not on the same page as he needs this fight against WBO champion Norman Jr to achieve his goal of becoming undisputed champion at 147.
If Hearn is going to make a big deal about fighters wanting a little more money during negotiations, he will come up empty in all the talks against the champions at 147. If Hearn doesn’t change his attitude, that will carry over when Boots moves up to 154. Boots needs a better promoter, someone who can talk and talk and not fumble their efforts to negotiate important fights to advance his career.
“It’s not my problem, the bad contract these people entered into. I know the offer we made was over $1.5 million for these people. They had never seen money like this. They’ve never had an opportunity like this before,” Hearn said.
The offer that Hearn believes to Norman Jr. made was $1.7 million, which was not “far in excess of $1.5 million”. That’s just $200,000 over the $1.5 million and well short of the $2.2 million they wanted.
Norman Sr. said all he wanted was for Hearn to sweeten the deal by $500K from $1.7 million to $2.2 million, and that should have been easy for him to do if he really wanted to make this fight. Fans believe Hearn never wanted this fight with Norman and had already decided he wanted Karen Chukhadzhian because it was a fight that would leave more of a bigger profit margin.
It would be a much easier one with the win guaranteed for Ennis where he would look like gold. If Ennis fought Norman, there was an excellent chance he would lose the fight, get beaten up and look bad. In other words, Norman Jr. would Boots expose Ennis and put him in the same position as Giovani Santillan.
All the money Hearn Boots paid to sign him to Matchroon would be down the drain, and he’d be stuck with a worthless, devalued fighter, who he never faced against Terence Crawford, Sebastian Fundora, Vergil Ortiz Jr. or can trade Tim Tszyu. .
Hearn’s lack of negotiation skills
“They come back and say, ‘We’ll do it in neutral territory.’ Philadelphia is where it is at the gate to pay these guys the maximum amount of money. The conversation is now irrelevant. These people live on another planet, in another stratosphere. I wish them the best of luck,” Hearn said.
It sounds like Hearn was never really interested in actual negotiations. He went into these conversations and went to Brian Norman Jr. looked like a contender instead of a world champion and felt he would accept the lowball offer made to him for the unification fight against Boots Ennis.
