Hearn doesn’t care that DAZN want Canelo-GGG III this fall

Promoter Eddie Hearn is in business with DAZN, but on Saturday he doesn’t want them to get their wish.

Eddie Hearn has been promoter most aligned with DAZN in the United States to this point, bringing his entire Matchoom stable with him to the still-new streaming service. Generally speaking, you can say DAZN has wanted Hearn’s guys to win their fights on the service to this point.

But Hearn knows that while no one at DAZN will say it, they have to be rooting against Eddie’s fighter Daniel Jacobs on Saturday when he faces Canelo Alvarez.

“I know DAZN want Canelo to win,” he said at Tuesday’s Grand Arrivals event in Las Vegas. “DAZN, you are amazing, but on Saturday night, it ain’t going your way.”

The company, of course, would be rooting for Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KO) because they’ve already signed him to an 11-fight, $365 million contract. He’s the biggest star in boxing right now and they’d like him to continue to be for the course of that deal.

Now, a loss to Jacobs (35-2, 29 KO) wouldn’t ruin all that or anything, but it’s pretty common knowledge that DAZN want to schedule a third fight between Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin in September, too. Golovkin — who has his own six-fight deal with DAZN — and Tom Loeffler spent part of last week making it clear that they signed with DAZN for the easiest path to the third bout with Canelo, and that DAZN wants that fight in September.

Hearn is aware of what DAZN wants, and doesn’t care.

“If (Jacobs winning) means DAZN not getting the fight they want in September, tough,” he said on Tuesday.

DAZN wants Canelo-GGG III for obvious reasons. It’s still maybe the biggest fight in boxing, and would be huge as they continue to push for subscribers in these early stages in the United States.

Jacobs beating Canelo doesn’t kill Canelo and it doesn’t kill a third Canelo-GGG fight, even in September, but it would dramatically affect that fight, no question. And a Jacobs-Canelo or GGG-Jacobs rematch instead wouldn’t quite have the same impact, either. If Jacobs beats Canelo on Saturday, he becomes a bigger star, but probably doesn’t instantly become a Canelo-level star, either. It just doesn’t really work that way. You might get a Sega Genesis game out of knocking off the top dog, but you don’t automatically take their spot and all their fans or anything like that.

But for Jacobs and Hearn, none of this matters. They want to win. Whatever the next level is, they want to get to it.