Matchroom head Eddie Hearn has predicted that neither he nor Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez would entertain an exhibition fight between a professional and a social media star.
Speaking to the DAZN Boxing Show, Hearn said that neither he nor Canelo would be keen, but made it clear he would be willing to stage fights that were true contests.
“Conor McGregor, we saw him fight Floyd [Mayweather]. He’s a fighter, he’s a mixed martial artist.
“He has previous experience in boxing. I will stand by my words on this. I won’t say I will never do a fight with a YouTuber but I promise you if I do, it’ll be a fight when you don’t know who’s going to win.
“It’s not going to be an exhibition, I have zero interest in an exhibition. I don’t mind when two guys want to go at it, but I still feel uncomfortable with it.”
He also suggested that his colleague Canelo would never go the same way that Mayweather did over a celebrity fight.
“The one thing you get is you get fighters being quite opinionated. Canelo Alvarez, in my opinion, would ever want to do that to the sport of boxing,” he explained.
“I think he has too much respect for the sport of boxing to do something like that. Floyd has never been about that. I like Floyd’s honesty, to say, ‘I’m just taking your money, give me the money and I’ll fight.’
“I believe Canelo would never want to be in an event like that.”