Maybe don’t hold your breath on that Tony Bellew vs. Michael Bisping bout.
Bellew and the reigning UFC middleweight champion had gone back and forth over a potential cross-sport clash à la Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather.
‘Bomber’ was so confident of his skills that he offered to fight Bisping once under boxing rules and once under mixed martial arts rules, with Bellew remarkably predicting that he’d choke ‘The Count’ out in the Octagon.
Talk about confidence https://t.co/3BwFU2jcoa
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) August 30, 2017
Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn has admitted that the Liverpool boxer has been entertaining the idea but Hearn’s latest comments suggest that he won’t give the green light to that fight.
In fact, the Matchroom boss has stated that there is only one fighter in his stable who he would feel comfortable in allowing to compete in a crossover clash which would see a mixed martial artist welcomed to the ring.
And his pick actually makes a lot of sense.
“If the money’s there, you can’t turn down things like that… You can never rule it out in the future, but there’s not one fighter that I have that I’m looking at [making a crossover fight with] other than Katie Taylor against Holly Holm,” Hearn said, via RTE.
“Holly Holm is a good boxer and she’s a lot better than many of the [current] female pro boxers out there and I think that’s a big fight.”
Taylor, the undefeated Irish boxer who has compiled a 6-0 record since turning pro last November, was actually somewhat close to fight Holm, the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion back in 2013
Holm was a professional boxer at the time and the pair were reportedly open to meeting in the ring but it never came to pass.
But, given the financial success of McGregor vs. Mayweather last weekend, Hearn admitted that he would not be averse to the notion of something similar, only with an Irishwoman taking on an American.
“It was a one off, a freak show,” Hearn said of MayMac. “I’ve a lot of admiration for the way they done business and they made an absolute fortune. The best way I can describe it is, they got away with it.
“It broke all records on pay per view over here… They made a lot of money.”
