Eddie Hearn Calls Zuffa Boxing Championship Belt the “Cringiest S**t I’ve Ever Seen”
November 12, 2022; Cleveland, Ohio; Eddie Hearn, Chairman of Matchroom Sport, with Montana Love after his disqualification loss to Stevie Spark at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio. Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom.
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Eddie Hearn Calls Zuffa Boxing Championship Belt the “Cringiest S**t I’ve Ever Seen”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn took aim at the Zuffa Boxing World Championship belt in a recent interview with iFL TV.

The Zuffa Boxing World Cruiserweight Championship will be contested on March 8 at Meta APEX in Las Vegas when IBF and Ring Magazine cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (29-0, 23 KOs) faces Brandon Glanton (21-3, 18 KOs) on the Zuffa Boxing 04 card, streaming on Paramount+. Opetaia’s IBF and Ring belts will not be on the line. UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that the winner will be Zuffa Boxing’s first world champion.

Zuffa Boxing operates under TKO Group Holdings in collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s SELA and advisor Turki Alalshikh.

“That is the cringiest s**t I’ve ever seen,” Hearn said. “You know I would never do that, but I was just laughing because I was reading about Jai Opetaia fighting Brandon Glanton for the Zuffa Championship of the World, and I was thinking, ‘Do you know what? I could just do that.’ That would be quite amusing. Why don’t we do an iFL one as well?”

Hearn continued: “Do you think I would disrespect boxing that much where I would say we are going to bring out the Matchroom Boxing World Championship? You’d have to be — I mean, my ego is out of control, right? That would have to be beyond anything I could ever fathom.”

He then pointed to the traditional belts and the fighters who defined them: “You’ve got to win the WBC. You’ve got to win the WBA. You know the belt that Muhammad Ali won? The belt that Sugar Ray Leonard won? Mike Tyson, Roberto Duran, Larry Holmes, Pernell Whitaker, Floyd Mayweather.”

Hearn acknowledged the belt could gain traction over time. “I get what Zuffa are doing, because maybe in five or ten years’ time, maybe the Zuffa World Championship is actually something that younger generations want to win,” he said. “But it just ain’t for me, mate. It’s just not boxing.”

Hearn’s comments were made during an interview with iFL TV.