{"id":507855,"date":"2026-02-27T16:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507855\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:13:09","slug":"ben-shalom-reacts-to-conor-benn-splitting-from-eddie-hearn-they-do-this-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507855\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shalom reacts to Conor Benn splitting from Eddie Hearn: “They do this themselves”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boxxer CEO Ben Shalom has shared his thoughts after the shock announcement that Conor Benn<\/a> has left career-long promoter Eddie Hearn in favour of signing with rival Dana White and his new promotional outfit, Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n

Benn debuted professionally with Matchroom Boxing and has remained with the company throughout his 25-fight career, with Hearn famously sticking by his side despite him testing positive for a performance enhancing drug in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, after two fights with Chris Eubank Jr turned Benn into a bigger star, \u2018The Destroyer\u2019 has opted to join Zuffa Boxing, at least for one fight, leaving Hearn without one of his poster boy fighters in a dramatic turn of events.<\/p>\n

Speaking to talkSPORT Boxing<\/a>, another of Hearn\u2019s rivals, Ben Shalom, sympathised with his fellow Briton, believing that Benn was likely advised to make the move by another member of his team, that does not understand or appreciate the promoter-fighter relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cPromoters are always made out like the bad ones of this and that but you have fighters, especially ones that you start with, that are leaning on you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are telling you that they want to get to the top, \u2018can you just do this\u2019 and \u2018can you just do that\u2019, ultimately you back the ones that you think are going to get there and make the most money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can sympathise [with Hearn] and usually it is the people around these guys [fighters], the ones that need a change and get power by moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, despite the empathy, Shalom saw the irony in the move and admitted that the outrage from Hearn and Matchroom has confused him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, the way they [Hearn\/Matchroom] reacted, I thought it was a parody. I thought it was a complete joke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, they have been doing this to fighters and taking various fighters, that have been built up by other promoters, for a long time, and putting it down to money and \u2018short careers\u2019, putting it down to \u2018there is no loyalty in boxing\u2019 and glorifying it, taking the Mickey with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely could not believe the reaction to Conor going to the highest bidder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benn is set to debut with Zuffa Boxing on the Fury-Makhmudov undercard, taking on former super-lightweight world champion Regis Prograis in a 150lb catchweight affair<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxxer CEO Ben Shalom has shared his thoughts after the shock announcement that Conor Benn has left career-long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-507855","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\/507855","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=507855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}