By Edward Chaykovsky

Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom strongly feels that ITV is making a big mistake by showcasing the upcoming return of Chris Eubank Jr. as a pay-per-view event.

Eubank will challenge Renold Quinlan for the IBO super middleweight title on February 4th in London.  

Hearn believes father and trainer Chris Eubank Sr. is brains behind the idea of turning the Quilnan fight into a pay-per-view bout. In recent years, Hearn has done his fair share of pay-per-views and he predicts a complete flop.

Hearn has two pay-per-view events coming up in the next few months - with Tony Bellew vs. David Haye on March 4th and Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko on April 29th.

"What I would say is that this first pay per view for ITV is a disastrous one because it isn’t a pay per view fight. What ITV should be doing is showing it on ITV1, where it would generate big numbers. I suspect it is probably greed and delusion from Eubank Sr that he thinks people will pay to watch his son in a fight that he is 100-1 on to win. He just doesn’t have the following or the support at the moment to justify a pay per view show," Hearn told GQ.

"And when he is fighting Renold Quinlan, who has won 11 of his 12 fights and no one has ever heard of over here, he’ll be lucky to sell 1,000 tickets. That is not PPV numbers."

A lot of networks are becoming eager to secure boxing content in the UK. ITV, Channel 5 and Dave have been televising fights of interest and are always looking for more. And now Frank Warren completed a big TV deal with BT Sport.

But Hearn sees a big upside with the growing competition.

"I welcome all broadcasters to boxing, because it brings out the best in everyone. For ages, Sky have been the only real show in town when it comes to boxing in the UK, and it is possible that a broadcaster can become complacent. I don’t think Sky have, but if other broadcasters – Channel 5, ITV, Box Nation, BT, even Dave – are saying, “Boxing’s hot these days, we are going to have a go”, we all have to up our game," Hearn said.

"And I, like any other red-blooded male, want to be No 1. So I will go to Sky and say: 'Right, get your money out, because we are going to war.' And they say OK. Which is great, because that means the fighters make more money, the shows get better, and we can make the big fights happen. Because people will only want to pay for the big, big fights: David Haye vs Tony Bellew; Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko; Kell Brook vs Amir Khan, hopefully. Compared to that, are people going to pay for Eubank Jr vs Quinlan? I don’t think so."