Eddie Hearn would like it to be known that rumors of his professional demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Recently, he says, after news had broken about Dana White and Turki Alalshikh combining to create a new boxing league, “some fake Twitter thing was like, ‘Oh, Eddie is retiring from the sport. He said so in an interview’. And people were phoning me up, saying, ‘Wow, are you really retiring?’ Well, no, I’m not.”
Hearn is leaning back on a couch in the lobby of the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida. He has just filmed a promo for a 256-player, nine-ball pool tournament that his company, Matchroom, will be promoting at the resort in August. In a couple of hours, he’ll be standing on stage as fighters weigh in for a Matchroom Boxing card, also at the Caribe Royale, headlined by a middleweight bout between Ammo Williams and Patrice Volny. He has just received word that one of the boxers on the card, Jalil Hackett, has been forced to withdraw after turning his ankle the previous evening. The A side of the co-main event, super middleweight Edgar Berlanga, is telling everyone who will listen that he is extremely unhappy with his placement on the card, that he should be headlining a major show of his own, and that he can barely wait to be a free agent.
It’s all in a morning’s work for a promoter, though, and Hearn seems perfectly relaxed as he spends 45 minutes in a conversation with BoxingScene that sought to go beyond the Xs and Os of the business.
Or maybe he’s just exhausted.
In 2024, Hearn spent just 120 days in his native United Kingdom, and 2025 is already on a similar course. After Florida, he’ll head to Sydney, Australia for a card featuring the likes of George Kambosos Jnr, Skye Nicolson, and Cherneka Johnson. A few weeks after that, it’s back to the States – Atlantic City this time, as Jaron “Boots” Ennis takes on Eimantis Stanionis.
That all makes for a lot of hours in a high-flying pressurized tube.
“It’s not the greatest lifestyle in the world at times,” he says, “and probably not the healthiest.” As he approaches his 46th birthday, that’s something of which he is increasingly aware.
“My granddad died at 45 from a heart attack,” he reveals. “His granddad died at 44. My dad had a heart attack at 52.”
Accordingly, he subjects himself to regular health checks. He has also embraced physical fitness, employing a personal trainer called Kai Peacock to coach him and the staff at Matchroom.
“I said to the old man [Matchroom founder Barry] that honestly, I think if I hadn’t started training, I would 100 percent have a heart attack,” he said. “And he said, ‘I don’t know about that, but I think mentally, you’d be shot to pieces’.”
Not that Hearn is either expecting or looking for sympathy. He is fully aware that boxing fans are disinclined to feel empathetic toward boxing promoters in general and him in particular. It is a peculiar development in the sport that modern fans are as likely to become tribally supportive of or antagonistic towards a particular promotional entity as they are of and towards specific boxers, and Hearn attracts more enmity in comments sections and on message boards than most.
Part of the reason for that is unquestionably that fans have become conditioned to disbelieve virtually every word that comes out a promoter’s mouth, and it is Hearn’s nature to utter more words more willingly than most.
He recognizes as much, too. When it is suggested to him that he is arguably the most accessible person in the business, he smiles in response that, “I’m probably too accessible. I keep getting myself in trouble”.
But it’s his nature. Take his utterances on deals or contracts or the worthiness of his or rivals’ fighters with as much salt as you deem necessary, but in person Hearn is disarmingly open, and all the more so in a business where guardedness is generally a pre-condition.
It is hard, for example, to imagine Bob Arum kicking back and extemporizing on how much he is motivated by a desire to emulate or exceed his father’s achievements or the joy he takes in his children’s success, but Hearn does so readily.
The brash and voluble way in which Hearn strode into the US market also put plenty of noses out of joint, earning withering public put-downs from the likes of Arum.
But Hearn is nothing if not self-aware. He recognizes that he hasn’t always acted in ways that benefit himself, let alone others, and he insists he is now in an altogether better place, motivated at least partly by his growing appreciation of the need to take care of his physical and mental health.
Asked whether it is possible to have friends in the boxing business, he pauses for half a beat, looks briefly down at the floor, and then, reestablishing eye contact, offers matter-of-factly that “I don't really have any friends, if I'm honest with you, in life. I mean, maybe a handful”.
But, he continues: “I’ve changed a lot over the last five years. In the end, you just give up. All you can do is focus on yourself and your own business and what you’re doing. I’ve worried about other people before. I’ve tried to bury other people before. People are trying to bury me, and in the end, it’s quite exhausting.”
That is why, he says: “I made a conscious decision a few years ago to just care less about what people say. You know, arguments, people's disloyalty, bullshit you read on Twitter – like, whatever. Just kind of remove yourself from that world. Because the reality is, we live in this boxing bubble, but outside of the boxing world, no one fucking knows or cares what's going on. ‘Oh, my God, have you seen so and so tweet that?’ Yeah, but maybe 5,000 people around the world might have read that; nobody else even knows who that person is and you've now lost your mind because that person’s made up something.”
It is one reason why he insists he is grateful for Alalshikh’s arrival in boxing.
“One of the benefits of it is bringing people together,” he says. “So, I’ve managed to settle differences with Frank Warren – genuinely. I enjoy his company. George, his son, I get on really well with. Even, dare I say, Oscar [De la Hoya] and Golden Boy.”
Part of the reason for that, he offers, is that for all the frequent focus on their differences, the likes of Warren, De La Hoya, and himself actually have more in common.
“We share the same passion for boxing,” he says. “Yeah, we do love the sport, but it’s just – it’s so frustrating as a business. And promoters always get the blame for things not happening. But people seem to forget that we want big fights. If we don’t make big fights, we don’t make money. We don’t want shit fights. But guess who does want a shit fight? The advisors; the managers; the lawyers; the trainers: they want low, low risk with plenty of reward. And that’s the wrong model.”
So, given the aggravation, the travel, the sniping from colleagues and keyboard warriors, is there an element of truth about that retirement rumor? Does he ever think about doing something else? Is it still enjoyable?
“I think as you get bigger and bigger and bigger, inevitably anything becomes less enjoyable because it has more aggravation,” he replies. “But yeah. I love flying around the world, doing shows like next week [in Sydney]. Australia is a new market for us. I think it has loads of potential. We’re in Mexico six events a year. We’re in Riyadh – probably six events a year in Saudi Arabia. We’ve done Italy, Germany, Spain, and obviously America. We did our first event in Canada the other day. That’s what I really love. I also just love boxing. I just love sitting and watching. I love going down to the amateur boxing club to watch my daughter. I just, you know – it’s my life. And so, yeah, I still enjoy it. So until you stop enjoying it, why would you stop doing it?”
It's been three-quarters of an hour, during which Hearn has been engaged fully with his interlocutor and, uncharacteristically, hasn’t looked at his smartphone once. But business is about to intrude again, with word that Berlanga has shown up to a behind-closed-doors weigh-in almost two pounds overweight.
Promoting can be lucrative, yes, but it can be a hassle. But for all the brickbats, it can also bring moments of genuine satisfaction.
“When am I happiest?” he asks rhetorically, repeating his interviewer’s final question.
“It might be a bit sad, but on a personal level it’s probably when a show goes really well and I’m thinking, ‘Wow,’ and people are leaving the venue and going, ‘What a fucking night!’
“But what also makes me happy is seeing a fighter achieve their dreams or change their life. Dmitry Bivol got me choked up [after his win over Artur Beterbiev], because I knew what that fight meant to him. I knew his dream was always to win all the belts. So when he had them in the ring, and when we’re back in the changing room and he’s looking at them, I’m thinking, ‘Imagine going home to your hotel tonight and fucking lying in bed with all the belts and going, ‘I’ve fucking done it!’’ That gets me. That’s the romantic side of the business.”
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com
