Eddie Hearn suing Jake Paul, seeking over $100 million for fight fixing accusations

Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn recently said that Jake Paul’s accusations of corruption involving judges would “be dealt with,” and the British promoter isn’t waiting around to get to that.

Hearn is suing Paul and seeking over $100 million.

Attorney Frank Salzano had this to say (from TMZ Sports):

“Both legally and ethically there is a clear line separating opinion from defamatory lies. Jake Paul knows that, and he purposely crossed that line when he wrongly accused Matchroom Boxing and Eddie Hearn of fixing fights.”

“Nonetheless he was still given an opportunity to retract his defamatory statements and refused to. Now he will face the legal consequences of his actions as Matchroom and Mr. Hearn will be seeking damages in well excess of $100 million given the value and goodwill attached to the Matchroom business and the harmful nature of Mr. Paul’s comments.”

Paul made the allegation that judge Glenn Feldman has been paid off by Matchroom for his scores in April’s Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano fight and August’s rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.

Feldman scored Taylor vs Serrano 97-93 for Taylor, and Usyk vs Joshua 2 115-113 for Joshua. Both cards were controversial, or at least debated, and most would agree scoring Usyk vs Joshua 2 for AJ was bad.

Hearn, who is pretty directly responsible for “legitimizing” the “YouTube boxing” idea in the first place by getting behind the pro fight between Logan Paul and KSI and then backing Jake Paul’s pro boxing debut in 2020, recently said that Paul crossed a line, and obviously he’s looking to make him pay for that.

“We all have a laugh with Jake and he’s an average fighter, but I’m telling you now, what he said was unacceptable and it will be dealt with, because we take this sport, we take our values as a business and a family, very, very seriously,” Hearn said earlier this week.

“We love the sport of boxing. For him to come out with idiotic comments without even thinking about what he said, is extremely harmful for me and us as a business, and very disrespectful to us as a business and a family.”

Hearn added, “He doesn’t even understand — when he says, ‘Why are Matchroom still choosing that judge?’ Matchroom don’t choose the judge, you idiot, the commission do. I don’t even think he knows the rules or structure or how it works. Sometimes all this Jake Paul stuff is a laugh and it’s funny and it’s good for business. This is not, and it will be dealt with.”

Paul, who will fight MMA legend Anderson Silva in an Oct. 29 Showtime pay-per-view main event, has not responded publicly.

It’s probably fair to say any working relationship between Hearn and Paul is over.