Fans roast Eddie Hearn for booking tiny boxer with 3-26 record in horrendous mismatch

Eddie Hearn is being slated online after booking a very undersized journeyman to face a debuting prospect tonight.

Matchroom Boxing headed to Newcastle tonight, where within the predominant event of the evening Josh Kelly pulled off a shocking upset over Bakhram Murtazaliev. Hearn wasn’t in attendance to look at Kelly win IBF super-welterweight gold, as he’s in Recent York for Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson.

Nonetheless, big headlines were made through the undercard when a debuting prospect took on what on paper appeared to be a routine test against a journeyman. All seemed superb until the pair stepped into the ring, where a monstrous size difference ended up making an otherwise under the radar fight go viral.

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Kiaran MacDonald and Marius Vysniauskas’ mismatch makes headlines

Unlike in MMA, where fighters can almost immediately tackle tough tests, boxing tends to permit for young fighters to construct their records by fighting journeymen early of their skilled careers. This was the case for Kiaran MacDonald, who turned over tonight in Newcastle.

He was matched with Lithuanian veteran Marius Vysniauskas, who once fought five times in six months during a 2024 run. After 30 skilled fights, his record was 3-27 which is pretty standard at this level of British boxing.

In his 27 defeats, Vysniauskas had only been stopped twice, and he was capable of survive again despite an enormous size difference with MacDonald. And it was that very gap – made all of the stranger by their statistics on paper – that got fans talking online.

Eddie Hearn mocked online for bizarre mismatch

When a clip from MacDonald’s win showed up on social media, viewers were quick to roast Eddie Hearn for putting on such a mismatch. He has been in a disagreement with Dana White over the standard of Zuffa Boxing’s output of late, which wasn’t lost on some users.

In Hearn’s defence, Vysniauskas’ BoxRec page seems to have his height marked as 5’6. That may’t be accurate, as he was towered over by MacDonald who is claimed by multiple sources to be 5’5, which might actually make him shorter.

“And Eddie Hearn has the nerve to speak s— about Zuffa Boxing when he continues to be doing s— like this,” one fan wrote, also branding the bout “Pathetic”. One other replied that the journeyman was “on a 27 FIGHT LOSING STREAK coming into tonight.”

There weren’t many comments rather more polite, with one asking: “Who the hell is doing the match making? Got a senior citizen in there.” One other commenter asked: “Did the old geezer win a raffle to get a fight?”