Eddie Hearn admits giving Jaron Ennis a second straight homecoming is coming at a fairly significant cost.
Ennis fights for the second consecutive time in his hometown of Philadelphia since signing with Hearn’s Matchroom, when he defends his IBF welterweight world title against Karen Chukhadzhian on Saturday, live on DAZN.
Hearn had been looking to pit the highly-touted ‘Boots’ against one of the other welterweight champions, but was unable to come to an agreement with any of them.
The Matchroom boss had multiple offers declined by WBO champion, Brian Norman Jr and when it became clear that the Georgia man was unwilling to accept the terms offered to him, Hearn and Ennis decided to advance with an undesirable, yet ordered rematch with Chukhadzhian.
Ennis won every round against the Ukrainian last January, although the 28-year-old has built himself back into contention with three straight victories.
Hearn’s belief in the star potential of Ennis ultimately convinced him to press forward with a fight that he concedes will lose him money.
“Listen, financially for us it’s a nightmare,” the 45-year-old told Boxing News.
“It is what it is.
“We’ve got to stack this card.
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“We’ve spent a fortune on the card.
“But we’re in the Boots business, we’re investing in [him] and I wanna see [him] unify the division before [he] moves to 154.
“So, we all just decided, let’s get this fight won. Let’s keep active. Let’s fight in February or March. And let’s make sure we get one of the [welterweight] champions [next].
“I would rather get [Chukhadzhian] out of the way.
”If we were gonna be forced into this, if we’ve got nowhere to go, let’s just deal with it. You know what I mean?
“We had such a great night in Philadelphia [on July 13], and we wanted to return there with something compelling.
“We also understand that, you know, that it’s part of the Boots journey and we’ve got to go and get this guy out of the way.”
Despite the desire to make unification fights, the Essex promoter has named alternative opponents if he is unable to secure these for ‘Boots’.
Hearn publicly called for a 5vs5 tournament against Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy company and named Ryan Garcia and Vergil Ortiz Jr as potential opponents for Ennis.
