Eddie Hearn said on Friday night that Conor Benn’s team fabricated a one-fight deal worth $15 million and tried to buy his silence with $250,000 after meetings that, he said, were happening while the other side was already speaking to a rival group behind the scenes.
Speaking to iFL TV, Hearn said legal action was coming over what he described as a made-up agreement with no other options or conversations. “What they did was they fabricated a deal of which there will be legal action incoming of a one-fight deal for $15 million with no other options, no other conversations at all,” he said. “And funnily enough, straight after that fight, there was another one announced. So, we’ll get to the bottom of that. That’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Hearn’s comments landed in the middle of renewed discussion about Benn’s future and the people around him. He said the dispute began after he was asked about claims from Keith Connolly relating to talks over Benn and possible involvement with other promotional groups. In Hearn’s telling, the issue was not simply a bad negotiation. It was that Benn’s side was holding meetings with him while already in contact elsewhere.
That, he said, was why the email mattered. Hearn said Benn himself never picked up the phone, and that the first direct approach came from the fighter’s lawyer. “What happened was Conor Benn’s lawyer sent me an email rather than Conor Benn ever speaking to me,” Hearn said. He said the lawyer then offered him $250,000 “as like a thank you.”
Hearn’s reaction was blunt. “You think you want to give me bait money to keep my mouth shut? F*** off,” he said. “You give me 25 million, I’d still tell you to stick it up your ass because that’s how I felt about the situation.” He added: “They know what they did.”
The dispute now centers on what was promised, what was actually on the table and whether the alleged $15 million arrangement was ever real. Hearn said he believed the money was bait money meant to keep him quiet, not a serious gesture. “They’re having meetings with me, they’re already talking to the other lot,” he said. He closed with a final blast at the camp: “Slags. Absolute slags.”
For Benn, the immediate issue is no longer just his next fight. Hearn has said the matter could move into legal territory, and he has put the credibility of the deal itself under direct challenge. If those claims are pursued, the fight over Benn’s future may soon turn into a fight over what was said, who said it and who was talking to whom when the deals were supposedly being made.
