In the evening, Hearn will host an informal media event — food, drink, further interviews — to promote WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade. Hearn is a multimillionaire. Father to two young children. He has no intention of stopping any time soon. The voice down the phone is telling him to fuck off. Eddie remains courteous, patient, and on the line. The room is choked with his fellow salesmen, insisting the merits of Weatherseal Windows , licking the lunchtime grease from their fingers, lighting up another fag.
Eddie is the youngest, and the only one to grow up in a mansion. He knows the value of a pound because his dad has earned millions of them. Barry Hearn also grew up on an estate: council, not country, Dagenham instead of Brentwood.
Barry could afford to raise his children in luxury: nice holidays, expensive Christmas presents, a private education. Yet he also expected them to graft. Yet he loved work, he loved earning money, he loved the hustle. He even loved Weatherseal Windows.
As soon as that lands, I get the bonus. And I was smashing it! For the billion-dollar boxing promoter, the joy of that extra fiver — plus a quid an hour — is still tangible 25 years on. The job offered a further incentive. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere; if you can sell double-glazing down the phone, you can sell anything. And there is no tougher school than telesales, because the rejection is on another level.
You learn how to sell. Growing up in a working class family albeit one made good , Eddie felt more affinity with the grafters of Weatherseal than his classmates at Brentwood School.
Except for a chubby boy in the year above: Frank Lampard , who also had a famous father and a tireless work ethic. He knew nobody there. After a week, his business studies class had halved in number: the rest skived outside, smoking weed. In Brentwood, such truancy would have brought down hell; here, nobody seemed to care. One day, Eddie approached the teacher. If you want to get your A-levels, work with me. Eddie started going to the library on his breaks. He got three A-levels.
The expectation was a degree in leisure marketing, like his sister, and then join Barry in the family business. His first few months involved inputting contact details into a database and making Richard Busby cups of coffee. After about a year, Eddie gets promoted, and then he gets a phone call. Is the sponsorship director available? He aces the interview, lands the job and a tidy pay rise.
So are several golfers, which prompts Eddie to contact Barry with a proposal: Matchroom Golf. He returns as almost the antithesis of prodigal son: the Biblical version squanders his inheritance, yet is forgiven by his father.
Neither Hearn would approve. After golf comes cards: Matchroom promotes the inaugural Poker Million final to an audience of 30m, and quickly corners the TV market.
Matchroom is basically out of boxing: its only product is the Prizefighter series, a knockout tournament of three-round fights staged over a single evening. As he cheerfully notes, the former demographic is much, much bigger than the latter.
Harrison asks for a fight; Hearn offers him a slot in Prizefighter. Lays out a plan: win the tournament, win the European title, and fight David Haye for the world championship. He phones Barry.
Yet Harrison draws a big crowd and big ratings. He wins Prizefighter. He dramatically stops Sprott for the European title, and Eddie runs into the ring, practically weeping from joy.
No one really knows who you are. He quickly becomes one. By the start of , Eddie Hearn has a stable of established names and rising talent. Having a stable is nice. He wants an empire. So spend a month eating Pot Noodles if the savings buy a tailored suit; hire a Bentley to drive to the job interview. And stage your fight nights in packed stadiums rather than half-empty halls. Perception is key. The show did record numbers on Sky Sports.
Time for phase two. Hearn told Sky to ditch the others, and give its whole budget to Matchroom. Six months after Brook-Hatton, the network signed an exclusive deal with Matchroom. Barely 33, Hearn had achieved domestic domination. It would never be quite as much fun again. In , Matchroom staged the biggest fight in British boxing history pt 1. However, the announcer branded him as Eddie Hills!
Matchroom has set up its own charitable foundation and used its sporting income to help further sports as well as community charities. In June, they made a donation to Jessie May Trust to help them cope with the coronavirus crisis that has gripped the entire world. Later he visited the Yianis Christodoulou foundation. The initiative was set up to give back to the community.
Hearn helped deliver food parcels, help children, and cover books. Per wealthypersons. This figure could be set to swell as Hearn has some of the biggest names and the hottest prospects under his umbrella. The Joshua-Fury fight will surely raise this net worth exponentially in Furthermore, if he can secure the signing of Canelo Alvarez, Hearn will be able to put up many more lucrative events in He set off very early one morning to catch a train from Chelmsford to Brentwood.
I remember crying, which seems to have been a constant in my early days. But then I found a very nice man at the station. Nine quid for the train ticket and some more money for the cab as well. Two months later, Smith thought he was about to lose his new job of making tea and doing odd jobs. After a Matchroom poker event which finished at 3am the teenager switched off his alarm the next morning.
He woke again only when Hearn called him at Smith started crying but he made it downstairs where he was given a tedious work task. He just drops a letter over my shoulder. I started crying my eyes out. I got back to the hotel in the evening and rang my mum. She knew this was such a chance for me and sorted me out. Eddie has replaced his dad as chairman which means that Smith is now head of boxing. We meet for a second time this week, at the O 2 on Tuesday evening, where Joshua and Usyk do a media workout.
Smith quietly ushers me away from the hoopla so we can find a room to catch up on the details of the new Joshua deal. Was Smith always confident Joshua would stay with Matchroom? I remember taking him for his first medicals in July when we signed him. I was 21, he was It was just the two of us going to Harley Street, getting everything done.
Everyone in our team has come a long way since then, including Eddie. But his mind is focused on the weekend.
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