“When you’re starting out, it’s just you against the world. “IT BECOMES LESS enjoyable the bigger you get,” is Eddie Hearn’s honest and somewhat wistful verdict on the promotional game. Within seven years you will announce boxing’s first-ever billion dollar deal with the American streaming platform DAZN – the very same month that your fighter, Tony Bellew, ends the glittering career of David Haye with a fifth round knockout (and another multi-million pound purse). Within six years, you will sell out Wembley Stadium to 90,000 people. Within three years you will sell out Wembley Stadium to 80,000 people. Within a year you will sign an exclusive broadcast partnership with Sky Sports. The biggest star in British boxing not named David Haye. Carl Froch, the WBC super-middleweight world champion. “Imagine what you could do with my son!” You sign Brook.įour days after the Thompson conversation, Carl Froch calls. Would you be interested in signing his son, young welterweight prospect Kell Brook? “We saw what you did with Audley Harrison,” says Thompson. Two days after the Sims phone call, Terry Thompson approaches you at a Prize Fighter event. Would you be interested in a meeting? You hesitate – it’s been a tough weekend – but eventually assent. It’s Tony Sims, trainer of European middleweight champion Darren Barker. One day, maybe, you’ll be able to show your face in public without being reminded of the fact. “Well done.” David Haye has earned £4.2m for one of the easiest fights of his career. No one really takes you too seriouslyĭavid Haye winks at you. When you’re starting out, it’s just you against the world. You’ve spent the past few weeks publicly questioning his record, doubting his chin, claiming he would soon be dethroned by an opponent who crumbled at the first assault. The man who destroyed your promotional aspirations a few hours earlier. Three in the morning, you’re hurrying along a backstage corridor, keen to escape the arena and the wreckage of this horrible night. At the press conference, Audley says he thought the stoppage was premature. In the dressing room, you encourage Audley to face the press, admit he froze in the biggest fight of his life. “You’re a fucking SHIT promoter!” You hurry inside. As you pass into the tunnel, somebody shouts your name. Harrison is jeered by the crowd, 22,000 voices chanting, “you’re shit, and you know you are!” As you walk the former Olympic gold medalist from the arena, people start throwing projectiles, hurling racist abuse. And suddenly it’s over: Eddie Hearn, boxing promoter, sent the same way as Audley Harrison, world champion a year of selling and scheming wiped out in less than nine minutes. People said he’d never be a world champion – now he’ll prove you wrong once again!”Įxcept Harrison climbs into the ring and doesn’t throw a punch for two rounds. People said he was too old to turn to amateur boxing – he won gold in the Olympics. (And once you believe something, everyone will believe it.) “Audley Harrison, this is his time! People said he’d never get an education – he got a degree. Rhapsodising on Audley Harrison to the extent even you started to believe the hype. Defeat WBA champion David Haye, and the impossible will have become reality. You have taken Audley Harrison from semi-retirement to the brink of one of the most remarkable comebacks in sporting history. You made a plan a year ago, on the poker tables of Las Vegas, and everything you envisaged has come to pass. You are young, brash, bursting with ideas and energy. Less than 48 hours earlier you had a dream: to become the biggest promoter in boxing. “Hearn, what the fuck was that? You owe me 15 quid!” On Monday morning, you walk into a sandwich shop and the place goes quiet. Created an event your own father told you was impossible. This was your first serious fight promotion. An estimated 223,000 households paid £14.95 to watch the bout on Sky Box Office. Two days earlier, you sold out Manchester Evening News Arena, 22,000 punters flocking to the first all-British heavyweight title fight since Lennox Lewis stopped Frank Bruno in 1993. To be more specific, imagine you are Eddie Hearn on Monday, 15 November, 2011. IMAGINE FOR A moment, you are Eddie Hearn.
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