Hearn: Boxing will not fall flat without crowds

GARDEN PARTY: Hearn will host four events

EDDIE HEARN reckons his back garden boxing shows will cope without spectators much better than football has done.

The intensity of the Premier League has faded since restarting without supporters in the stadiums.

And there are fears boxing matches will fall a bit flat as well without the usual raucous ringside racket.

But Hearn is convinced his fighters will have no choice but to be 100 per cent switched on throughout their bouts – simply because they cannot afford to go missing for a split-second.

The promoter will host four shows in August as part of Fight Camp, culminating with Dillian Whyte against Alexander Povetkin.

He said: “There is always a danger that the buzz for a fighter and the intensity going into the ring can be dampened down.

“It’s very difficult for someone who isn’t a fighter to answer, if you haven’t been in the ring then you don’t know what it’s like.

“Every fighter says the same thing, ‘A ring is a ring, it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or there,’ and I don’t buy that. But what I do believe, as Tony Bellew said on Friday when he was with me, is that once you get hit you switch on very quickly.

It’s not really, ‘Oh, I’m not really up for it’, because you can’t do that. In football, you might not really be up for it, you can get away with having an average game and people might not say anything.

“You can’t get away with a below-par performance in boxing because you will get beaten.

“If you aren’t on it you’re in trouble, not just in danger of losing a fight but getting hurt.

“And that fear factor for any fighter is enough to make sure you’re switched on.”

Meanwhile, Hearn must now negotiate the 2021 showdown between Anthony Joshua (below) and Tyson Fury with Bob Arum after the WBC champion distanced himself from controversial Irishman Daniel Kinahan.

Hearn said: “Whoever I’m told to negotiate with to make a fight, I will negotiate with. “Daniel was the guy put in charge of that process so that’s what we did.

“Now they have made it very clear Bob is the man in charge of Tyson and we will negotiate exclusively with Bob.

“I’m happy to do that as well. I’ve had my ups and downs with Bob, I don’t really care, we just have to make the fight.”