Eddie Hearn has been around boxing all his life. But when he decided to start promoting, he and I would talk often.
I was the editor of Boxing News, he was working on the rejuvenation of Audley Harrison and launching a three-round feast of violence called Prizefighter. But he gained traction quickly.
The rapid-fire signings of Carl Froch, Darren Barker and Kell Brook saw him bag three world champions – one already reigning and two for the future – and by the time 2012 came around he landed the pick of the crop from the London Olympics, including Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell.
After each ‘win’, after each success story, he would say, “We’re just getting started.”
After each big signing it was, “We’re just getting started.” After he got exclusivity with Sky, same thing. After packing out Wembley Stadium, same thing. After starting to build his business in the US, he said the same thing. Then came “the billion-dollar deal” with DAZN.
Still, he was only just getting started, he’d say.
A few weeks ago, perhaps a little weary of being on the road, he joked with IFL’s Kugan Cassius that he felt he’d “completed boxing.”
There had been more big deals in the US, more Wembley nights, more champions, more dreams made. Yes, perhaps a few had been broken but you could understand maybe Hearn was yearning for a buzz he’d already had, chasing something he’d become all-too familiar with.
Then came the coronavirus outbreak and nine weeks of isolation. It was important time off the treadmill for him. He took stock, but he hasn’t considered taking his ball and running. On the contrary, it’s almost like he’s just getting started again.
“Leave the business?” he asked rhetorically when I suggested he didn’t need this anymore – the talk of fights that haven’t been made, abuse he takes on social media, the boos he accepts at big fights. “Don’t be silly. If it wasn’t a family business… If it wasn’t my life… What else am I going to do?”
“Chill out?” he’s asked.
“I’ve been chilling out for nine weeks,” he replied. “This is a bit of a blessing in that respect. I feel great. I’ve been sleeping eight hours every night, I’ve not flown for 10 weeks, I’ve worked out most days, I’ve spent time with the family. I was running on empty going into this, now I’m ready to completely take over the world.”
Hearn is extraordinarily busy. There can’t be many people he regularly picks up the phone from now, bar Anthony Joshua, father Barry, wife Chloe and top executives at Sky and DAZN. If you grab 20 minutes with him, his phone will go at least a dozen times. We spoke about meeting up earlier in this year, back in January, and off the top of his head he suggested the first date he was due to be free in 2020, which was sometime in late March.
Right now he has more time. He’s certainly not racking up those air miles, back and forth between the US and USA like a trans-Atlantic yoyo. But he’s working. Matchroom have been banging out as much content as most content providers. Eddie’s been leaving his mark on social media, too, as Eddie does. He’s also plotting how to return to action once it’s safe to do so.
Is there a chance of doing more than one show a week He’s asked if there’s a chance of doing more than one show a week given the size of his roster.
“Not really, because of scheduling issues,” he countered. “Everything is dictated by the broadcaster. I don’t think the broadcaster is thinking, ‘When boxing comes back, we’re going to have three shows a week’. They’re now looking at the plethora of sports on their platform. Premier League are going to come back and say, ‘Right, we are going in June and we’re doing three games a day for 10 or 20 days or whatever…’ You’re going to be scheduled around other sports and that goes for all sports. I think it’s just a situation where we provide the content our customer requires and they’re going to want some big shows, they’re going to want some pay-per-views. That’s the more difficult thing.
"We will be back in some capacity in July but what do you do on the bigger shows when you were going to generate a million, two million, £10 million on the gate, and now that’s taken away from you. That’s where it starts to become a lot more difficult. But it’s tough shit for us. We’re going to have to do it. We’re going to have to find a way because I’m not going to come back and just do small shows. We can’t afford to lose the momentum that we’ve built, so the first priority for me in chronological order of how they were cancelled is Dillian Whyte against Alexander Povetkin. So how do we find a way to do that behind closed doors? It’s f--king difficult, is the answer, but we’ve got to find a way.”
Could that contest go behind closed doors?
“I think it has to,” he emphatically said. “Dillian Whyte wants to fight and I don’t want to do just small fights. Ultimately, we will be dictated to by the British Boxing Board of Control. Even if we felt it was the right time to go, if they didn’t it’s irrelevant what we think. We’re not doing it. We wouldn’t go against the British Boxing Board of Control unless we had a major fallout that would be catastrophic but we will adhere to all the regulations put in place by our governing body. We’re talking to them every day. The main issue for boxing is doctors have got to be available and at the moment they’re much better served helping the country and the pandemic and God forbid we had an emergency and a fighter had to go to hospital it’s not putting unnecessary strain on the NHS because that would just be selfish. I also think people are underestimating the time needed for fighters to get ready. At the moment, fighters are isolating at home. They’re training, doing their roadwork, but they’re not with their trainers. They’re not doing sparring.
"It’s May the 1st today so when are gyms going to open? Middle of May at the earliest, latest end of May or early June? When you come back early June and you try to find sparring partners and that’s going to be difficult, you’re not going to be ready to fight in three or four weeks, are you? So, actually, let’s just slow down, think about it, get it right and it’s going to be an astronomical cost to the promoters because of the regulations from the British Boxing Board of Control. Fighters have got to go into isolation. Everybody there has got to be tested. You’ve got to provide hotels that are just for the fighters. It’s £250 a test if you want to do it privately. So when you’re talking about five fights, that’s 10 people, plus the corner teams of five, that’s 50, then you’ve got a production team of 20, plus Sky… You’re looking at 100 people. That’s £25,000 in testing.”
But Hearn is not looking at doing things by halves. Whether it’s an elaborate backdrop or whatever it may be, he’s not looking to return and go through the motions.
“I’m not interested in doing shows in a studio or anything like that,” he went on.
“I’ve got illustrious plans to create a special fight camp, because the beauty of what we’ve been doing in recent years has been about the viewers turning the TV on and going, ‘Wow, look at this.’ And we can’t do that in a studio. So, we have to try and create an environment where the viewers turn on TV and think, ‘Wow, look at this’ and also an environment where the fighters can get the adrenaline going and peak at the right time. That’s another thing to consider, what if a fighter walks out to a career-defining moment, he walks out behind closed doors, doesn’t really get up for it and the next thing is he’s messed up his performance and f--king his career. That’s up to them, that’s where they’ve got to be professional. Some fighters are saying, ‘I’ll wait until the crowds are back.’ That was before they realised that crowds might not be around until next year. Most would much rather fight in front of a crowd but now they’re thinking they want to box, summer, September…”
Hearn insists he won’t rush anyone back into the fray, chiefly because in the grand scheme of things boxing’s needs come after a country’s and societies. But he’s chomping at the bit once more.
In those well-trodden words of a decade ago, nine weeks comparative rest and he feels like he’s just getting started. All over again.
