Terence Crawford was 'touchy' for accusing me of being 'disrespectful' with Canelo Alvarez comment, insists Eddie Hearn

05/09/2024 12:25

Eddie Hearn has told talkSPORT.com that he did not ‘disrespect’ Terence Crawford in his leaked conversation with Canelo Alvarez.

Prior to Crawford’s win over Israil Madrimov a month ago, which Hearn promoted on a Saudi-backed Riyadh Season Card in Los Angeles, plenty of the talk in the build-up centred around Canelo.

It was known beforehand that the hope if the American was victorious would be to make a super fight against the Mexican early next year.

This plan has since hit a stumbling block due to Canelo’s public fall-out with Saudi boxing chief HE Turki Alalshikh.

Regardless, the potential fight was a huge talking point prior to Crawford vs Madrimov.

A couple of days after that event, Hearn met Canelo at the press conference for his next fight against Edgar Berlanga on September 14.

Their conversation was caught on camera.

The Mexican told the promoter: "You've been talking about me all f***ing week."

To which Hearn replied: "We have to use your name to sell the show."

Crawford did not take kindly to this remark from Hearn.

Speaking on The Porter Way Podcast, Crawford said: “I thought it was disrespectful for Eddie Hearn to lie and say, ‘We had to use your name to promote the fight.’

“We didn’t use Canelo’s name to promote s***.

“He’s trying to stay friends with him, but it’s disrespectful to me.

“Any time they gave me any question about Canelo I shut it down.

“So for him to say we had to use his name to sell the fight is disrespect.”

Speaking to talkSPORT.com this week, Hearn gave his response.

“He’s a bit touchy, isn’t he?” the promoter laughed.

“I was actually joking with Canelo, well, I was and I wasn’t.

“We don’t ‘use’ Canelo’s name, but he was a massive talking point that week.

“All of you guys [the media] want to talk about Crawford vs Canelo so yeah we’re gonna talk about it.

“And Crawford, those guys need a little help sometimes to push the show.

“Probably the only ones who don’t need help are Anthony Joshua, Canelo and Tyson Fury – in terms of big enough profile that you don’t have to.

“But even AJ next week you’re all gonna be talking about AJ vs Fury, it’s just a natural conversation.”