Oscar De La Hoya took to social media to taunt promoter Eddie Hearn over his flagship fighter Anthony Joshua’s knockout loss to Daniel Dubois last weekend. De La Hoya said that fighters who sign with Hearn’s Matchroom are guaranteed to lose or get injured.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) has been a big winner for Hearn since he signed him more than a decade ago and has brought in a lot of money for his company. AJ is getting older, and the timing was bad for him to challenge knockout artist Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs).
In hindsight, Hearn should have waited until Joshua fought Tyson Fury before making the fight with Dubois. All Joshua had to do was fight one more weak opponent like the four previous tomato cans while waiting for the Fury to face Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch on December 21.
Hearn will probably now realize that he made a mistake in pitting Joshua against IBF heavyweight champion Dubois. He probably thought Dubois would fall apart under the hard punches of Dubois like he had in his losses to Usyk and Joe Joyce. However, these were fights where Dubois was very into them and landed a lot of big bombs that would knock out both fighters.
DDD was robbed of his title fight against Usyk in Poland last year after he knocked him down in the fifth round with a body shot, which the referee mistakenly saw as a low blow. It should have been a knockout win for Dubois.
“Anthony Joshua was knocked out by Dubois in the fifth round. It was actually an awesome and entertaining fight, and I like AJ. However, this was another big L for Eddie Hearn, who is literally 0-11 against Frank Warren this year,” Oscar De La Hoya said during today’s Slap Thursdays issue.
It was an entertaining fight between Joshua and Dubois last weekend. It was one that AJ came close to winning in the fifth round when he hurt Dubois, but he messed up by throwing an uppercut while going for the kill. Joshua’s trainer told him to throw an uppercut, and those were useless instructions.
“It perpetuates the Matchroom curse, which means if you sign with Matchroom, you’re either guaranteed to lose or get injured,” De La Hoya continued.
“To make matters worse, Eddie Hearn confronted his old mate Devin Haney in the crowd at Wembley. Eddie, you can’t build a fighter to save your life. Anthony Joshua had the world at his fingertips, and you found a way to crush his career.”
