Eddie Hearn revealed today that Conor Benn will be in a mega-fight this summer if he defeats Chris Van Heerden this Saturday night in their headliner on DAZN at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Hearn isn’t saying who the high-profile opponent will be for the 25-year-old welterweight contender Benn (20-0, 13 KOs), but he’s mentioned wanting to match him against Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner or Kell Brook.
The casual boxing fans will take more interest in Benn if he faces a notable ex-champion like Broner, but it would be a cruel joke to call that a mega-fight.
The 32-year-old Broner has won only once in the last five years since 2017, and that was a questionable 12 round unanimous decision over Jovanie Santiago last year in February 2021.
“I promise you that if Conor Benn gets through Saturday night, you’re going to see him in a mega fight in the summer,” said Eddie Hearn to the DAZN Boxing Show.
Benn recently said Brook priced himself out for a fight against him, so it’s unlikely that Hearn will revisit talks.
Whether fans would view the shopworn Broner & Brook as mega-fight material, but that would obviously depend on how much knowledge they have of the sport.
For the dedicated hardcore boxing fans, a mega-fight for Benn would involve him fighting one of these welterweights:
- Keith Thurman
- Danny Garcia
- Vergil Ortiz Jr
- Errol Spence Jr
- Jaron Ennis
“It’s so difficult for me to see you now as a top-five fully-fledged welterweight contender. You’ve already proved your British level, you’ve already proved your European level, and you’ve beaten all those guys,” said Hearn to Matchroom Boxing about Conor Benn.
“Now, you’re going to world level. The only thing that can get in your way is just getting carried away,” said Hearn. “You’ve got to strike at the right moment as well.
“That’s why this fight [Van Heerden] is so dangerous,” said Hearn.
“It’s a banana skin,” said Benn.
“It’s a step up, but it’s not the mega-fight that’s going to set you up for life because you’re dangerous,” Hearn continued about Benn’s fight on Saturday night against the 34-year-old non-world ranked Van Heerden.
It’s difficult to refer to the 34-year-old Van Heerden as a “step-up” as Hearn is calling him because he hasn’t won a fight in two years, and he looked woefully bad in his last performance against Jaron Ennis in 2020. Van Heerden is more of a lateral move from Benn’s last opponent 37-year-old Chris Algieri.
“You should beat Van Heerden well. It has to be frustrating because for a long time people haven’t rated you, and all of a sudden, you announce Van Heerden. ‘Poor, that’s a bit of a mismatch,'” said Hearn.
“What a compliment,” said Benn in seeing the criticism fans are giving him about fighting second-tier fighter Van Heerden as a compliment.
“This is where I get so passionate and I train as hard as I do because I’m like, ‘Yeah, you really think so? You think I’m a mug? You think they’re going to take my head clean off? You think I’m going to get caught by that? No, I’m going to train hard and prove you wrong.’
“And then when I get in the ring and do a number on them, I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, now what, mate?’ I know we’ve got a long way left to go and a long way left in this game, but even me getting to where I’ve got to now, you couldn’t have made it up.
“If this is right now my full potential, I’m happy, but the sky’s the limit, it really is. There is no limit to how far I can go. There is no limit to what I can achieve,” said Benn.
