Queensberry Promotions chairman Frank Warren will be going on the [legal] warpath after Chris Eubank Jr. scathed him and other promoters for being “scumbags”. With Eubank’s statements clearly left a sore mark on Warren, the British promoter now seems headed towards clashing with Eubank in the court of law.
Chris Eubank Jr. (33-3, 24 KO’s) was quite clear with his statements as yesterday’s Sept. 25th Beterbiev-Bivol press conference showed, mentioning Frank Warren by name who has revealed to be taking legal action against Eubank for his comments.
“The bottomline of it is very simple―he [Chris Eubank Jr.] was sued by me for a legal breach of a contract and I was successful in suing him, and he paid substantial damages,” Warren explained to Talk Sport after the press conference, “What he can’t accept is what’s legal and what’s not, and regarding what he said; he’s going to get sued again for the comments he has made publicly.“
Warren’s lawsuit was prompted by Eubank’s withdrawal from a scheduled bout in 2016 with Queensberry Promotions fighter Tommy Langford. While Eubank Jr. claimed to have suffered a “severe elbow injury”, he was still forced to pay hundreds of thousands in sterling pounds after the court’s ruling in 2017.
Given the accusations launched by Eubank Jr. where he accused Warren of “lying” and “cheating” throughout the past decades, Warren might have the legal ammo necessary to incur another hefty penalty on Eubank, as he would go on to mention he would take every legal precaution to punish Eubank for his comments.
Notably, Eubank Jr. himself mentioned how promoters used legal tools as a weapon against fighters while he praised General Entertainment Authority (GEA) chairman Turki Alalshikh for his efforts in helping the sport of boxing, and the fighters within it.
“I would say the only promoter that I know for sure isn’t a scumbag, is His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh [Alalshikh],” Chris Eubank stated during the presser. “This is a man who isn’t trying to take money from fighters. He isn’t trying to use lawyers and accountants to lock fighters up in slave contracts.“
Matchroom chairman Eddie Hearn was also reached out for his own view on the matter, having been included in Eubank’s rant as one of the “scumbag” promoters the fighter mentioned, but Hearn’s response was more calm as he used the opportunity to claim Eubank might have been coerced to say what he had.
“I know he [Chris Eubank Jr.] wasn’t very happy that he was at the bottom table down there,” Hearn told IFL TV when asked on his reaction to Eubank’s comments, “And I think he was probably put up to what to say, but I don’t know. [It was] very strange. It’ll be dealt with, and I think that’s all we can say at the moment.“
Hearn stating Eubank was “probably put up to what to say” might not be too farfetched of a theory, given he himself [or Matchroom] was implicated by one of his own fighters in Conor Benn (23-0, 14 KO’s) in having given his opponent, Peter Dobson (16-2, 9 KO’s), cues on what to say during the pre-fight press conference of their February 3rd fight―in order to draw more interest towards their fight.
“When I [saw] him [Peter Dobson] and we had the first face-off, not a word came out of his [Dobson’s] mouth,” Benn told DAZN in the build-up to his fight with Dobson. “When I first faced-off, it wasn’t recorded, it wasn’t camera, [he] didn’t say one word for the whole time. We got in the car, we went to the Las Vegas sign, someone sent a message over , this is factual, and [it] said, ‘You need to spice [things] up’. And then [I] got there and then he started piping up.“
Presumably, it was someone within Matchroom who told both Benn and Dobson to stir up their fight which would main-event, leading to the heated confrontation the two had during their face-off prior to their match. While Hearn wasn’t specifically implicated in this case, Benn’s statements seem to support the fact fighters are being pushed by their promoters to often stir conflict.
In that case, it would likely have been Boxxer, headed by Ben Shalom, who potentially told Eubank to spill into a rant about rival promoters. With Shalom having already demonstrated to be moving suspiciously behind-the-scenes, Eubank’s rant might have been Shalom’s doing―which is supported by the fact his relationship with promoters such as Hearn has never been on the best of terms.
In any case, Warren appears dead set on seeing Eubank suffer the consequences for his words, seemingly proving the former IBO champion right in this regard as he seeks to limit a fighter’s freedom of speech―though it should be noted Eubank’s statements, which can be viewed as defamatory, does ;legally open up an avenue for Warren to launch a defamation lawsuit.
