Warrington leaves matchroom

Josh Warrington and Matchroom have parted company following the expiry of Warringtons contract. Statement from matchroom says they did not share the same plans. Not yet clear who Warrington will sign with but he can shift tickets so will not struggle for offers. Its not fully clear yet why Warrington has decided to leave.

Frank Warren I bet.

I reckon it will probably be warren also. His new deal with bt might allow him to more budget to work with and they made him a better offer.

Smart move the way Hearn cashes everyone out.

Warrington needs to keep plugging away gradually around the level he has been in order to develop. And why move away from Leeds?

As I've said elsewhere, it's no huge loss to matchroom as while he's a decent boxer don't think he's world level and that fan base could disappear after a loss or 2.

Good luck to him though

Derbymanc wrote:As I've said elsewhere, it's no huge loss to matchroom as while he's a decent boxer don't think he's world level and that fan base could disappear after a loss or 2.

Good luck to him though

In days gone by, it would have been a bad move to let a ticket seller, who can regularly shift close to 10k tickets go. These days, though, Hearn has a different model: build "grudges" and flog on PPV (while offloading tickets to StubHub).

Warren will do well with him.

True, though you'd think he'd rather build up grudge matches with a ticket seller. Be interesting if this is a shift to frank. Eddie has a lot of fighters to keep happy.

He probably wants to step up his opposition and fight for a world title but isn't good enough to even compete at the highest.

You don't see many boxers leave Matchroom so would be interesting to hear why.

I can see a few Matchroom fighters ending up on Boxnation now they've got the BT deal. I couldn't say who exactly but It will happen. I knew as soon as the BT deal was done there'd be movement. Can see a few more following suit personally.

Valero's Conscience wrote:You don't see many boxers leave Matchroom so would be interesting to hear why.

Two in two days wasn't it? Tyrone Nurse signed with Warren.

Maybe he got wind Selby was jumping ship (Selby has one fight left with Matchroom)?

Whatever Hearn was offering (and it seemed as though he was done promoting in Leeds from his statement) Team Warrington thought they could do better.

We'll see how it goes but Saunders and Flanagan have both defended world titles in the past fortnight but I didn't know either of them were happening until they had.

Flanagan for instance has defended his title four times in little over a year but has next to no coverage, it's not just isolated to him either on the same card Langford and Williams both fought, two top prospects but again nobody knows about them. Easy to say as 'real boxing fans' that we do but we're not the ones who put money in their back pockets and when we are (Ricky Burns) said promoter screws them for everything.

The Matchroom blueprint does suck, too many sub standard PPV's but they pull in paying customers and they have multiple genuine headliners who get paid fairly and to my knowledge promptly. Hopefully boxing on BT sport takes off so they have to improve their content but I have no faith in he who shall not be named, he'll end up putting on even crappier cards, going bankrupt and screwing his own boxers ala Don King for the umpteenth time.

Kid Galahad is another one, returns from a drugs ban (for another time) but the moment he returned we should see his name everywhere as a potential Scott Quigg opponent.

i have heard quite a few boxers say that warren  actually pays better than Hearn, curtis woodhouse said it and BJ Saunders was saying in an interview with IFLTV at the weekend that warren pays him very well and he said he knows he wouldn't get the same payday with matchroom

of course Warren has a reputation for not always paying up which is a bit of a risk, not sure that will be as much of a risk now with BT Sport involved and better cash flow

i think this warren - BT Sport thing is a double edged sword, in one sense its competition for matchroom which is badly needed but it will most likely lead to many fights not being made because of network / promoter issues.

It usually comes down to money and control. Better exposure on the sky matchroom platform, but that might not translate into better money for the fighters once matchroom and sky take their cut. Id be surprised if warrington left to take less money somewhere else.

catchweight wrote:It usually comes down to money and control. Better exposure on the sky matchroom platform, but that might not translate into better money for the fighters once matchroom and sky take their cut. Id be surprised if warrington left to take less money somewhere else.

Hearn tends to follow the money rather than build his fighters (in the way say, Top Rank do).

Warrington needs a few more at fringe world class (steadily moving through ranks). Hearn probably offered to chuck him in with Linares or something.

Why would you move him away from Leeds, shrinking ticket sales or not?

I cant think that Matchroom would be happy to lose Warrington as he has a big fanbase. No statement from Warringtons side though nor any anouncement from another promoter yet so its hard to say.

Several high profile fighters who have worked with them in the past like Frampton, Degale and Groves for example have been critical. The exclusive deal they have with Sky gives them a lot of power. It would be interesting what percentage of the ppv events and gates are going towards the fighters while they are on multi fight contract deals for example.