Selby signs with Matchroom

Just seen this online - another good signing for Eddie

Really enjoyed watching Selby last time out as well - hope he gets plenty of airtime



http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/3/12/4095870/matchroom-signs-lee-selby-schedules-april-20-return-boxing-news

I like Selby. Huge for his division. For his sake, I hope he develops more of a pop in his punches as he can go all the way. Great signing for matchroom.

If he could add a bit of one-punch ko power he could go very far. Also has a little arrogance about him which, even if people do not like, will get bums on seats one way or another.

Perhaps not a name like Burns or Groves but its a shrewd signing by Hearn and it'll be good to see him develop as he has improved of late and looks like he has completely sown up the featherweight division domestically and is looming more than comfortable at commonwealth and European level

As Az said he is a big guy for a FW so it'll be interesting to see if he remains at feather or moves up. He has developed a bit of a punch too, stopping 3 of his last 4 so if he has that extra pop it will help him as he goes up the levels

Wonder if his brother will also turn pro. Wasn't he the one who beat Kal Yafai for the Olympic spot?

azania wrote:Wonder if his brother will also turn pro. Wasn't he the one who beat Kal Yafai for the Olympic spot?

Yea Andrew, I think he's about 24 and got a gold at European championships and a silver at the world amateur tournament. Hopefully he turns pro, bills a little feud with Yafai too which could be big down the line

He has one-punch pop. He stopped Smith and Simpson with single shots.

WHU_Champo_League_in_7Yrs wrote:

azania wrote:Wonder if his brother will also turn pro. Wasn't he the one who beat Kal Yafai for the Olympic spot?

Yea Andrew, I think he's about 24 and got a gold at European championships and a silver at the world amateur tournament. Hopefully he turns pro, bills a little feud with Yafai too which could be big down the line

He must be pretty good to beat Kal as Kal looks a special talent. Hopefully he does turn pro and forgets about this WSB nonsense.

It's awesome seeing guys talk about the guys from my local St. Joes on here...

Buckland and Selby will be looking at World Titles shortly (Buckland fighting for an Interim in the next few weeks on the Martinez/Murray card).

What I will say is though, the news of Selby signing with Matchroom was taken down from Sky for legal reason earlier (You can have a guess of why this has happened!). But Lee had a rolling 3 fight contract with Warren so I'm not sure why the news was taken off the major sites?

Seeing as Hearn won the purse for Lee to be shown on Sky it's a natural move for him to move over.

Also, Andrew is an absolute animal. The guy spars with Gavin Rees and Gary Buckland regularly (both of which are 3 weights higher than him) and if he can stick it with those guys, Yafai (who I rate highly!) better watch out!

It's okay Hearn signing all these fighters but how is he going to accomodate them all..........

With his prizefighter series growing in popular and a set amount of dates on SKY sports........Some top fighters are going to have to share shows and not receive top whack...and others will be struggling to get noticed...leading to jealousy and resentment........

It's not going to be Utopia............

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:It's okay Hearn signing all these fighters but how is he going to accomodate them all..........

With his prizefighter series growing in popular and a set amount of dates on SKY sports........Some top fighters are going to have to share shows and not receive top whack...and others will be struggling to get noticed...leading to jealousy and resentment........

It's not going to be Utopia............

It's a fair point, but apart from Froch, Hearn hasn't yet got the marque fighter - I think it'd be fair to see prospects like Groves, Bellew, Selby and the like supporting Burns and Froch - There's no harm in Brook being a "co-headliner" to the champs. We've seen Alvarez vs Moseley on a Mayweather vs Cotto card in the US.

Same can't be done here.

Besides, BoxNation has done nothing to help Billy John Joe Jimmy Saunders or the other one who couldn't make weight at the Olympics, having them on an undercard on Sky will do them good! (Especially if they're being paid to fight this time!).

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:It's okay Hearn signing all these fighters but how is he going to accomodate them all..........

With his prizefighter series growing in popular and a set amount of dates on SKY sports........Some top fighters are going to have to share shows and not receive top whack...and others will be struggling to get noticed...leading to jealousy and resentment........

It's not going to be Utopia............

Perhaps having stacked cards.

People need to remember that SKY have only a set amount of dates available as I've stated above....

With Champions like Burns.......Groves....Brook.......Barker etc etc etc needing dates..........He's going to have to use PPV often to pay their wages!!

See If you love this guy in a year's time.........

I was thinking about that Truss, but I think that Az has it right that he will just stack cards


Remember the bigger names like Froch, Kell, Burns, Groves etc wont be fighting more than once every 2 or 3 months so its not like he has to have them all on the same date. Sky and Hearn will be thinking about scheduling these guys already

They have done quite well viewing wise, Brook-Hatton did particularly well if I remember. At this moment in time, only Froch, Burns and Brook are headliners whereas Barker, Groves, Selby etc wont mind being chief support on big bills while the likes of Yafai are willing to get any extra coverage when they can

I wouldn't be surprised if Hearn does the old Warren trick of putting on 7 competitive domestic/euro bouts without a world title fight.

Magnificent 7 here we go ago, £15 a pop.

It would be worth it.

I think you will pretty stacked cards but there will be alot more ppv. Unless Sky drastically expand their boxing schedule then he wont be able to accommodate them all and keep them earning good money without ppv.

I read somewhere (and I can't remember where!) that Hearn was going to look to increase the Sky dates from 20 to 30.

Not sure whether he's likely to be successful or not given the reasons they cut down in the first place.

I made the point on Monday that he may have too many headliners.
Stacking cards is alright but each show has to generate the revenue to pay them!

Need to be packing out the O2 or MEN and probably PPV too once you start putting on 3 big names plus an undercard.

He has 3 head-liners. Each fighting a MAXIMUM of 3 fights a year (probably less). So that's 9 cards, stacked with quality understudies, plus maybe 4 Prizefighter cards and maybe 4 'Magnificent 7s' as per Strongy's point and you've still only 17 shows.

Unless I'm missing something, surely 20 shows should be ample even with his current stable?

Groves, Burns, Froch, Frampton, Brook and Barker or even Rees could all theoretically headline cards. I think you would probably have more than 4 prizefighters in a given year also.

Well last year there were 5 prizefighters, 2011 there were 7...

We've already had 2 this year.

Add Bellew to the list of headliners as he's headlining on 30th March.

The other thing is he keeps talking about how he wants his fighters to be really active....

Do his allotted shows count late/night shows live in the states etc

I thought that it was allotted slots as they will be on at peak times, maybe if he can get more of the night shows it covers any fights over in america. With Froch only having a couple fights left, Burns has Broner and Brook has the USA to break into with big names there so he could get more shows that way. It's not like SKY have alot of late night events at 2am but meerly repeats of the days events

Burns, Froch and Brook are the only headliners he has that I can see.

Groves will be brought on more as Froch starts to come to the end of his career, fully expect to see a passing of the torch fight between the pair in a couple of years. Barker is european/fringe world level so don't see any issue with him co headlining with someone like Bellew who's in the same position. Say Froch gets past Kessler and rematches Ward in America, who out of the second tier fighters would not want to be on that undercard?

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Burns, Froch and Brook are the only headliners he has that I can see.

Groves will be brought on more as Froch starts to come to the end of his career, fully expect to see a passing of the torch fight between the pair in a couple of years. Barker is european/fringe world level so don't see any issue with him co headlining with someone like Bellew who's in the same position. Say Froch gets past Kessler and rematches Ward in America, who out of the second tier fighters would not want to be on that undercard?

Frampton?

Frampton I still see as an undercard man, unless you're at world level you can't expect to be headlining.

Didn't Frampton headline a show in Belfast recently?

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Frampton I still see as an undercard man, unless you're at world level you can't expect to be headlining.

I'd say he's as much of a draw in Belfast as Brook is in Sheffield. Having lived in Glasgow, I'd say he's also a bigger draw than Burns. Agree he wouldn't sell out on the mainland UK but he's still shifting ten thousand tickets in the Odyssey which Hearn will exploit. He has a real following from both communities which very few get over there. I'd like him to box on undercards a bit more as his progression is maybe too quick, but he will be used as a headliner.

Theres loads of fighters in Hearns stable that could and have headlined cards. Without either Sky expanding their current schedule or ppv becoming more common I dont know if Hearn will be able to keep them all earning enough money.

I guess it depends what standard you expect of your headliner and how stacked or shallow you'll tolerate the undercard.

Im just going off the fighters in his stable who have headlined events in the past. Id expect some of the lower key fights guys like Barker and Groves have might play a supporting act from time to time but I think Hearn will struggle to accomodate them all on Skys current schedule without having a few ppv cards a year which he can stack. I dont think he could afford to keep all his stable well paid going off 20 non ppv slots with stacked cards.

Whats the problem with Hearn doing what he is doing??

If he feels that these fighters are going to make the sport more popular and more regular each weekend then fair play.

I don't know about you guys but it feels like you have to wait ages for a decent fight these days.

Hearn isn't going to sign fighters of this caliber if he can't accomidate them.

I expect Boxing to be on our sky screens more often in the future.

Maybe almost every saturday we could be watching decent fighters on Sky. Truss complains about them being hidden away on boxnation, now complains about them being on sky!!!

This could be a major year for the sport on Sky.

Agreed Reborn -

It seems that boxing promoters can do no right these days. Whilst obviously there is bound to be some concern amongst fans about one guy having such a strangle hold on the sport we must at least wait and see what affect it has and what Eddie can do.

So far I have been nothing but impressed by what he has accomplished in the short space of time he has been on the scene. Clearly by the amount of fighters not just signing with him but jumping ship to him I am not the only one.

I have stated before that from all previous business ventures the Hearns have had, they come across as promoters who know the art of making money is to appease the fans. They have turned Darts into a global sport watched by over 300 million people across the World every year...this a game which many refer to as a pub sport.

It's not only he and his family who have benefited though as they have ensured that the people involved have had a fair share of the pie. Last years Taylor won £200,000 for winning the World Darts Title....in 2002 that figure was £50,000. The total prize money has increased from £200,000 to £1,000,000 and is only going to get bigger.

The way people have gone on you would think that PPV has never been around. It has and to be honest I don't think Hearn can do any worse with it than Warren did with his Khan deal and others.

If I trust anyone to give me value for me when having to shelve out an extra £15 for a night of boxing action then I would choose Eddie Hearn.

I have actually sent an email off to him this morning with regards to the number of TV slots he has with Skysports and how he plans on keeping all of his fighters happy and active without having to resort to the overuse of PPV.

Given he has given me access to interview Kell Brook & Kal Yafai in the past I should hopefully get a response from him which I will be happy to share with the board.

I think Hearn has done very well but its just basic speculation that with such a large stable and relatively few slots available to showcase them all, how is he going to manage?

On 20 Sky slots he has prizefighter and a large stable to satisfy. Im not sure its achievable as things stand now and I don’t know how much Sky are willing to expand their boxing programme.

I think he has picked his signings wisely.

Burns - Scotland

Groves - London (potential Froch opponent)

and now Selby - Wales

He is spreading big names or potentially big names all around the UK.

He more or less has the Irish eating out of his hand with Frampton, Lindsey and McCloskey fighting over here in Belfast. Although Lindsey and McCloskey are nowhere near the top level, they have the Odyssey Arena filled every time they fight.

I see similar cards in Scotland and Wales.