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<\/p>\nEddie Hearn did not hold back from taking a few jabs at Zuffa Boxing\u2019s debut on Friday night, doing so in his typical, understated way.<\/p>\n
Dana White stepped into the boxing world with his first major event at the Meta Apex, where Callum Walsh beat Carlos Ocampo in a quiet headliner. While the show itself was understated, fans praised both the Las Vegas venue and the overall broadcast.<\/p>\n
Still, Hearn was not entirely sold. He pointed out that if he had promoted a similar event at that venue, he would\u2019ve faced heavy criticism from boxing fans \u2013 even though he admitted he had not watched it himself due to not having access to Paramount.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEddie Hearn holds back praise for Zuffa Boxing\u2019s first event<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Richard Pelham\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Dana White was the first to admit that Zuffa Boxing has some work to do, and while many expected Eddie Hearn to pile on, he did not take the bait. Instead of adding fuel to any existing media tension, Hearn kept things relatively measured.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old spoke to IFL TV, claiming he did not catch the event live. Even so, his comments made it clear he was not overly impressed by what he had seen or heard about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI followed it on social through Zuffa and stuff like that. It was different, wasn\u2019t it? I\u2019ll say this, if I put on that card, I would get absolutely rinsed, I would get abused for a month, but they\u2019re starting out and getting the ball rolling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys are long-term players, they don\u2019t have to get results in the first three shows so I believe they\u2019re going to be good for the sport\u2026 I\u2019m more interested in the soap opera and the beef, they\u2019re saying they\u2019re not recognizing belts and now they\u2019re main eventing a WBC world title fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really interesting but honestly, didn\u2019t watch the show. I saw some highlights, Callum Walsh; Max Kellerman said he was fighting like Roy Jones Jr, so it must have been good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEddie Hearn gets to world champion before Zuffa Boxing<\/p>\n
There had been whispers that Zuffa Boxing might try to sign two-weight world champion Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez, but Matchroom already had a matching period built into his contract, giving them the chance to keep him.<\/p>\n
According to Hearn, Matchroom matched the offer, which means they are set to retain Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a good position with Bam. We\u2019ll be moving forward with him and we\u2019ll be announcing his next fight very soon,\u201d he revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn did not hold back from taking a few jabs at Zuffa Boxing\u2019s debut on Friday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-434508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}