BoxRec

Matchroom and Eddie Hearn have been great for British boxing lately. They are way out in front of all other promotors, day by day, week by week, they are gathering momentum, i can only see them widening the gap on the competition the next few years.

I'm a fan of Matchroom, i like what they are doing and Eddie Hearn seems like a genuine guy who wants to do right for the sport. It has to be noted however that there have been some pretty dodgy decisions for their house fighters recently.

Burns/Gonzalez (weird, very, very weird!)
Burns/Beltran (horrible scorecards, Burns clearly lost)
Rose/Maciel (did not see this fight so maybe unfair of me to list it, but i read the controversy of the scoring)
Froch/Groves (rotten scorecards and disgraceful stoppage)

Perhaps others can add more to that list?

I dont believe they are corrupt, but there's a case to be made and i can see many boxers thinking twice about challenging Matchroom fighters on Matchroom shows at this particular point in time, and who could blame them? Would Ward come to Britain to face Froch after those scorecards and that stoppage? Not in a million years!

Rather than defending these poor decisions/stoppages, Eddie Hearn needs to acknowledge facts and do the right thing for the fighters, the fans, and the sport as a whole by setting up an immediate rematch. This sh*t is happening on their shows, they have to take responsibilty.

Hearn was giving out bad signals about the possibility of a Froch/Groves rematch in post fight interviews, thats how i interpreted things anyway. I hope over the coming days he reflects on the whole situation and comes to the same conclusion i have. After a run of stinking decisions/stoppages, Matchroom needs to protect their good promoter image and set up an immediate rematch between Froch and Groves, Hearn needs to try and force Froch's hand as best he can. An immediate rematch is what the British fans and British boxing needs to happen, and what Matchroom needs to deliver to try and uphold their good image.

I'm not going to get into this as I already have a view on it and I get into enough heated discussions over it lol.

Burns-Gonzalez seemed pretty genuine to me, Gonzalez was goosed, the wrist was just an excuse. There have been some shocking stoppages on matchroom shows though and Rose-Maciel, Bellew-Chilemba, Burns-Beltran, Froch-Groves have all ended controversially.

There are always dodgy decisions in boxing unfortunately.

A significant portion of them are on Matchroom shows, though a big reason for that is because they are the ones putting on all of the shows. If you run significantly more fights than the other promoters then you will have significantly more controversy.

The naive part of me wants to believe that matchroom aren't up to any dodgy dealings with their fights. But I do believe they have a certain influence, be it deliberately or not.

Before this fight particularly Froch was getting hyped up as the coming of christ, that straight away builds up a preconception on the outcome of the fight.

Then there was the constant fowling and not getting a point taken off.

The judges, they seem to be influenced in some way. Fancier hotel rooms than they are accustomed to perhaps?

I know technically it's NOT giving backhanders, but it is dodgy imo

Its rare to see a scorecard where the promoted fighter doesn't have at least one judge in his pocket. Close fights never go to the fighter without connections, do they? Not like its good, but it happens the world over and it really isn't a Matchroom specific problem and more of a massive flaw with boxing in general.

What Eddie really needs to do is what Don King was famous for - enters the ring with a champion and leaves the ring with a champion - "If you beat my fighter, you're mine" 8)

It's not a matchroom problem it's a boxing problem. Your going to get the odd controversial call now and then.

I wouldn't trust anything that Matchroom does anymore.