ON THE ROAD WITH BOXING’S MR BIG ‘It’s business but it’s also a personal thing. Tony is a mate’
EXCLUSIVE: Sportsmail goes behind the scenes with top promoter Eddie Hearn
IT is Sunday evening at Goodison Park and the immense noise from the crowd has made the home dressing room tremble. The fighter and his promoter are not far off shaking either.
Tony Bellew says nothing for close to 15 minutes as he stares out from under his blue hood. He looks nervous — and for good reason.
For three weeks Bellew has dreamed each night that he will lose to Ilunga Makabu and tonight he finds out if the Congolese southpaw punches as hard as people say.
Tension, doubts, anxieties — this is life in the hurt business, and here it is set to the muffled chorus of
Sweet Caroline, which is seeping through the walls.
Three hours earlier it all became too much. Bellew’s eldest son, Corey, called out ‘Dad!’ when he saw him at the other end of the players’ tunnel and his worlds of violence and family collided. Bellew welled up and trainer Dave Coldwell considered sending the 11-yearold home. Soft edges can have hard consequences when you are a 33-year-old fighting for a world title after two failed attempts. A third strike and he might be out. And that would also have serious ramifications for a promoter who has invited
Sportsmail to join him in two countries across three days.
Eddie Hearn is the spinner of many plates, a man in the middle of an old industry built on blood and cash, and this Liverpool show is his second world-title production in an extraordinary weekend, having watched Ricky Burns make history as a three-weight champion in Glasgow a night earlier.
That was big but this is bigger. Hearn has put in £1million to pay 28 fighters and hire Everton’s ground with the hope, if all goes well, that he will break even for the night.
Breaking even is the name of the promotional game. Do that more often than not, build profiles along the way, and then, with enough wins, an exceptional fighter might finally reach the pay- per- view platform where everyone gets rich.
This WBC world cruiserweight title fight could push Bellew mighty close to that dreamland and Hearn has staked a lot on an emotional man who is both a close friend and a major investment.
Suddenly, a man in a headset enters the room: ‘ It’s time. Everyone out except Tony.’
Hearn and Bellew have a long hug. ‘I asked for this, I asked for this,’ Bellew says.
Hearn nods. ‘ Now go do it,’ he replies. latest golden goose, Anthony Joshua. Sportsmail is here to see how the cogs of an intriguing business turn on a mad weekend. Across his two shows Hearn has staked £1.5m, with £500,000 going into Saturday evening’s Burns card at the Hydro in Glasgow. But before heading north, Hearn is in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon for the weigh-in of a 14-fight show. A drama will soon develop, but before then Bellew takes to the scales and is already revved up. Later, away from the cameras and unreported, Bellew confronted a member of Makabu’s entourage in the lobby of the Hilton hotel. ‘You staring at me, yeah?’ he said. ‘ I’m f****** telling you mate, back the f*** off.’ They are separated and word reaches Hearn in a parked car. He shrugs. ‘A
‘If a guy sells and fights well, that’s gold dust’
fight in a lobby could kill the fight and we lose all the money put in, £1m,’ he says, ‘but I have learned not to stress on the things that might go wrong. I’ve worked with Tony for years — he goes off at people.
‘You have to understand these men are about to fight. It’s all part of the game.’
Besides, there are so many other details to consider. With 14 fights at Goodison Park, Hearn describes each bout as ‘a profit centre’ and watches closely to see if a fighter is pulling his weight in ticket sales.
The complexities behind that give a fascinating insight to boxing, whereby lower level fighters must rely almost as much on their ability to shift tickets as their skill in the ring. To that end, they might expect to pocket 10 per cent of what they sell in addition to their modest fight purse, while Bellew and Makabu will earn six figures each.
‘If a fighter sells 200 tickets at £50 that is about 10 grand to the show,’ Hearn says. ‘If I’m paying two guys £1,500 each to be bottom of the card, that is £3,000 so 10 grand in ticket sales means £7,000 profit from one guy alone.
‘But if you are one of the bigger guys and the fight is costing me 10 grand but you are selling only £1,000 of tickets, that doesn’t sound great. It might still be worth it because you are investing in a good fighter’s future, building his profile.
‘That is a massive part of what we do — building financially viable cards but also selling the right fighters. If a guy doesn’t sell or fight well, you’re pretty f*****. If he sells and fights well, that’s gold dust.’ The final big push for sales comes at the weigh-in, where Hearn’s hands- on approach extends to telling big David Price’s opponent, Vaclav Pejsar, to put on shoes after he gets off the scales so he doesn’t look short in photographs. It is one of the little tricks of promotion.
Hearn leaves the city with Michael Buffer, the legendary American ring announcer he has hired for close to five figures a night. They charter a private jet for £6,000 and head for Glasgow. Buffer asks about the price of London property — if Donald Trump becomes president, Buffer says he might consider his options. HEARN has always been a salesman. He sold windows at 16 while his dad, Barry, was selling snooker, darts and boxing.
‘I have maybe 200 calls a day,’ he says. He works away from his wife and two daughters, aged three and six, about 100 days a year and owns two dozen suits. He sleeps roughly six hours a night.
‘The other morning, it was something like 6am and I was putting on my suit,’ Hearn says. ‘ My three-year-old walks up and asks, “Daddy, why do you always work?” That is hard.
‘It is not really about money. My missus asks why I don’t leave some things to other guys in the office. But it is an obsession to succeed. Maybe that comes from being Barry Hearn’s son.’
In Glasgow, another famous son is having his second professional fight. Conor Benn is fighting Luke Keleher and Hearn is in the dressing room. ‘Conor, be calm, work off your jab,’ he tells him. Benn swings recklessly before winning on points. ‘You’re a lunatic,’ Hearn whispers in his ear.
He is laughing but this is a pragmatic industry — Benn’s name will count for little if he suffers silly losses.
Over to Burns. Hearn leans in a moment before the referee issues his final instructions: ‘ You are a two-weight world champion and this is your house.
‘ This guy isn’t on your level. Be the boss.’
Burns wins in eight against Michele Di Rocco and becomes Scotland’s first three-weight world champion. Hearn remembers seeing Burns writhing in agony in hospital in 2013 after he broke his jaw against Raymundo Beltran. He would later lose his lightweight world title and be declared bankrupt.
On Saturday night Hearn and Burns were hugging and talking about light- welterweight unification fights. The only minor irritation comes from a spreadsheet. One of his bigger-name fighters in Glasgow sold only 28 tickets. ‘ Not good enough,’ Hearn says. IT’S fight day in Liverpool. Hearn is back after a four-hour drive and has issues to solve. He takes a call from his daughter — her rabbits got out of their hutch and one is missing.
He also cannot get Bellew off his mind. ‘It’s an interesting dynamic,’ he says. ‘You do become closer to some fighters than others and Tony is one of them. You invest in them and it’s a business thing because you’re promoting them and Tony can go to the next level here. But it’s a personal thing as well. Tony is a mate of mine.’
Bellew’s team and Hearn are nervous. He had a terrible camp, dislodging a rib.
‘This is going to be a hard one,’ Hearn says. ‘ More than the business side of it, I just desperately want Tony to do this. I know what this means to him.’
Their arrangements have always been done on handshakes rather than contracts. ‘I just want him to finally have his moment,’ Hearn says. BELLEW enters the ring to a huge noise and suddenly there is silence. Makabu, the man who has knocked out 18 of his past 19 opponents, breaks Bellew’s nose in the first and dumps him on his backside.
But Bellew gets up and delivers something remarkable, knocking Makabu unconscious in the third round to become a world champion at the third time of asking.
The crowd, people of Bellew’s city, are going berserk, hugging strangers. Grown men cry. In among it all, the fighter is doing the same. His promoter breaks down with him. They hug.
For a brief moment Hearn doesn’t ‘give a f***’ about the business side. Then he does. Because this is boxing. And what a weird and wonderful business it is.