Eddie Hearn slams Katie Taylor’s HBO no show

Eddie Hearn hit out at HBO for choosing not to broadcast Katie Taylor’s world title unification in New York last night.

The Bray lightweight brought the WBA and IBF 135lbs belts together at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with an entertaining win over Argentinian Victoria Noelia Bustos.

Fans on this side of the Atlantic got to view the fight via Sky Sports. Indeed the bout was shown on the widely-held Sky ‘Entertainment’ package. However, Stateside, the fight was not part of the HBO broadcast, with highlights instead being shown before the Jarrell Miller-Johann Duhaupas heavyweight clash.

It was something of a backfire for the Matchroom boss who had elected against a massive homecoming for Taylor at the 3Arena in Dublin in favour of hosting the bout in America in an effort to increase Taylor’s profile there.

The long-term plan for the Wicklow 31-year-old is U.S. domination and, following her display last night, Taylor will perhaps be bumped up the bill next time out.

However, Hearn was quite riled at the decision not to show the Bustos fight stateside and said afterwards that “HBO made a big – whatever – not showing this fight tonight.”

“Look ,people have got to learn this girl is a superstar, she is going to be around for a long time.”

“It’s about entertainment. show me more entertaining fighters than Katie Taylor at the moment, there are not many out there. But she is on a personal mission tonight she unified titles and now it’s about picking up all the belts.”

Hearn reiterated that America is Taylor’s future home following a win over a game champion who also paid tribute to.

The English promoter recalled how “we sat in the office a year-and-a-half ago with a plan to become the undisputed world champion.”

“She’s unified the belts against a very good fighter. Bustos deserves a lot of credit – she was immensely tough in there.”

“Two belts down, two to go. It’s just a brilliant story. Katie Taylor, lighting up both sides of the Atlantic. We know they love her in the UK, Ireland; now they’re going to love her in America as well.”

Taylor herself stated her desire to become undisputed champion by the end of the year and will immediately begin targeting WBC champ Delfine Persoon and WBO champ Rose Volante.

Hearn concurs and pledged to try and achieve that goal.

The Matchroom boss outlined how “we’ve got two more and we’d love to do it in 2018. Clean up the division in 2018 and maybe even move up. There’s some really big fights out there.”