{"id":498820,"date":"2026-02-23T12:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T12:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/498820\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T12:31:12","slug":"horrible-outrageous-barry-hearn-reacts-to-conor-benn-leaving-matchroom-to-join-zuffa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/498820\/","title":{"rendered":"“Horrible, outrageous”: Barry Hearn reacts to Conor Benn leaving Matchroom to join Zuffa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry Hearn has shared his reaction to Conor Benn<\/a> leaving Matchroom to join Dana White and Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n

The shock news was announced on Friday evening<\/a>, with Benn leaving Matchroom after 10 years working together, dating back to his professional debut in 2016.<\/p>\n

While the boxing side of Matchroom is now controlled by Eddie Hearn, his father Barry still remains a key part of the business, and he has told Talksport<\/a> that he believes Benn\u2019s departure to link up with White is the most outrageous thing he\u2019s ever seen in sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable. Boxers do come and go, but this wasn\u2019t the average relationship with a contracted boxer. Conor Benn was as close as he could have been to being part of the family, and for him to make a decision like this without even a phone call, or even Eddie suggesting by text that they meet to discuss it, Conor suggested it\u2019s best to go through lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 10 years after what we\u2019ve gone through with him, in my 50 odd years of promoting sport, this is the most horrible, outrageous [thing I\u2019ve seen]. I can\u2019t describe the feeling of when you\u2019ve been let down. It\u2019s like when you\u2019ve been married for 10 years and your wife walks out and you think why. Nobody discussed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think he was that type of boy, maybe we got it wrong with Conor, we took his side and we believed everything he said and maybe we were wrong. It is personally disappointing because it goes beyond money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearn also stated he isn\u2019t surprised that White offered Benn the deal, but that the British fighter shouldn\u2019t have gone about it the way he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously received a huge offer from Dana White because Dana has got to make waves in boxing. He\u2019s got Turki Alalshikh\u2019s money behind him and needs to sign fighters and needs to pay them really well, which he is doing, but that doesn\u2019t mean to say you disband a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benn is set to have his first fight under the Zuffa banner in May, in what will be his first outing since defeating long-term rival Chris Eubank Jr back in November.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Hearn has shared his reaction to Conor Benn leaving Matchroom to join Dana White and Zuffa Boxing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-498820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}