Eddie Hearn believes Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou will earn over a million pay-per-view buys.
'AJ' and 'The Predator' are currently expected to fight on March 8 in Saudi Arabia. The two will headline a DAZN pay-per-view offering featuring the likes of Zhilei Zhang vs. Joseph Parker on the undercard. On paper, the fight is an excellent one.
However, the bout itself is also somewhat controversial. Last year, Hearn, and even Joshua himself, slammed Ngannou's boxing match with Tyson Fury as a "gimmick fight". Now, they're in the position of trying to promote a fight with the PFL contender.
Ngannou himself has joked that his upcoming boxing match is a bit of a gimmick. While that might be the case, Hearn believes that it will be an incredibly profitable event. Speaking in a recent interview with Seconds Out, the head of Matchroom made a bold prediction.
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In the interview, the promoter predicted that the heavyweights would earn a million pay-per-view buys next month. Hearn predicted (via Boxing Social):
“It’ll do a million [pay-per-view buys]. It’s a big fight and it’s a mad world that we live in where you’re only as good as your last fight, where all of a sudden a lot of people believe that AJ could be the best heavyweight in the world and could beat [Tyson] Fury."
Check out his comments below (11:50):
Eddie Hearn reveals official prediction for Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou
Eddie Hearn is rolling with Anthony Joshua to get the job done next month.
There are few relationships between boxers and promoters better than Hearn and 'AJ'. With that in mind, his prediction for Joshua's return against Francis Ngannou comes as no surprise.
Speaking in the aforementioned interview with SecondsOut, Hearn picked the British boxer to get the victory. While that comes as no surprise, the promoter stated that he's expecting the former UFC champion to be dangerous on fight night.
Hearn also added that he will be relieved when Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou is finally over. In the interview with SecondsOut, the head of Matchroom Boxing predicted:
“I expect Joshua to do a job on him but I do expect him [Ngannou] to be dangerous, it’s just going to be one of them [relieving moments] when it is over."