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"Hard Work Beats Talent" - Eddie Hearn Talks Pay, Corruption, And Legacy In Boxing | PBD Podcast. | Ep. 506
01:55:05
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- [00:00]
Eddie Hearn
The world has gone a little bit soft. Let's be honest. You don't get given anything for free.
- [00:05]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you see yourself as a better promoter than any of these guys? Might as Don.
- [00:09]
Eddie Hearn
I don't like the way Don King does business.
- [00:11]
Patrick Bet-David
By the way, 1.6 million pay per view, $80 million in revenue will fight between those two.
- [00:16]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, I would say that's 100% not true. But he came out today and said, I want to fight Eddie.
- [00:22]
Patrick Bet-David
I will fight Eddie for free.
- [00:24]
Eddie Hearn
Oscar De La Hoya, you know, me and him are like this. What happened with point? You have to walk away and go, I don't need to do this anymore.
- [00:31]
Patrick Bet-David
You just presented yourself as extremely confident that not just you're great.
- [00:37]
Eddie Hearn
You know, me and Jake, we've had a big defamation case against him at the moment.
- [00:40]
Patrick Bet-David
But you called me average after one minute. After one minute of my first professional fight.
- [00:45]
Eddie Hearn
No, but you're still average. I'm being honest. He's very average.
- [00:48]
Patrick Bet-David
Is this a million dollar bet you guys made?
- [00:50]
Eddie Hearn
Maybe we can talk about a million, but we'll have a chance.
- [00:52]
Patrick Bet-David
Let's do a million.
- [00:53]
Eddie Hearn
I don't know. I don't want to see Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson. Example of a fighter that's been misrepresented.
- [00:59]
Patrick Bet-David
And abused is Mike Tyson biggest losing fight for you.
- [01:04]
Eddie Hearn
Business wise, we sold out, but the pay per view flopped.
- [01:07]
Patrick Bet-David
You lost money on that?
- [01:08]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. No, no. Probably my best example of that is Canelo Aldez. Just don't ever, ever make decisions based off emotion again. You know, like he beat the out of you, don't you? The guy was a pound to pound great fighter.
- [01:21]
Patrick Bet-David
You think you're on a different level?
- [01:22]
Eddie Hearn
Different level.
- [01:23]
Patrick Bet-David
What do you think he's in pursuit of?
- [01:44]
Eddie Hearn
Why would you bet on Goliath when we got bet David? Valuetainment giving values contagious.
- [01:49]
Patrick Bet-David
This world of entrepreneurs, we get no value to haters. How they run, homie. Look what I become. I'm the one on. Okay, so we have one of the greatest promoters of all time in the house today. He's represented some of the biggest fights. Anthony. Anthony. Joshua. Canelo Alvarez, Triple G. I can give you a bunch of names and I don't know why. When he gets on the camera, people want to see what this guy has to say. Talks a lot of and entertaining, funny. It's the one and only Eddie Hearn. It's great to have you here, bro.
- [02:19]
Eddie Hearn
Thank you, thank you. Firstly, you've got your own rap theme tune. Yeah, I mean, I'm straight away getting on the phone to my guys. I want one of those.
- [02:27]
Patrick Bet-David
We got to get it for you.
- [02:28]
Eddie Hearn
I want one.
- [02:29]
Patrick Bet-David
No, we got to get it for you. Especially now, this next, the fact that you're, you're, you're considering changing your career into politics. You need one, you need to get, you need to get into that. But I, I want to start off with this. So when I was looking into the story about what I know you as is the promoter, right? And then when you get into, you're like, let me a little bit more. You, you study your pops, and there's a couple clips about your dad I'm watching. I'm like, this guy fires me up, right? And then I find this clip of your dad's 10 rules for a life. Have you seen this? Or I'm gonna read this to people that haven't seen it. So, number one, it's better to be born lucky than good looking. Number two, tell the truth. It's easier than telling lies. Number three, sheer work ethic can make you look like a genius. Number four, pressure is only felt by those who fail. Number five, you will run a better business and life if you think poor. Number six, unusual things happen every day of your life. How you deal with them makes you unusual. Seven, life ends in tears, so smile the rest of your life. Eight, your life does not change by sitting on the sofa. Nine, avoid being a secret. And I love this one, by the way. If you're good, then admit to it. If you're great, then shout it from the rooftops. And number 10, when you need a hand, you're more likely to get a kick in the nuts. When you need no help, there will be a queue of people wanting to give you things. One of great life's greatest mysteries. How influential was he in shaping your mindset? Getting that competitive edge that you have today?
- [03:59]
Eddie Hearn
Everything. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm kind of like first generation money. But now things have changed a lot from when I was growing up in terms of our business and the success of it. So how we grew up wasn't how my kids are growing up, for example, because things have gone very well for us. But he was adamant that I wouldn't be a spoiled rich kid. You know, he calls me silver spoon. This is this joke between us, and I always tell him that I turned it gold. You know, we always joke about it, but I think that as you get a little bit older, you start to reflect on your childhood. And my childhood was not. A lot of people get it the way That I was brought up like the world has gone a little bit soft. Let's, let's be honest. And a couple of those points, you know, in that top 10 are very consistent with my childhood, which is work, work, work, work, work. You know, you don't get given anything for free. When things get tough, you wake up an hour earlier, you go to bed an hour later, everything is resolved by hard work. And winning is everything. Don't ever let anyone tell you that taking part, you know, or losing is acceptable. The only reason you play, the only reason you're in business is to win. And I'm not saying necessarily this is for everyone. This is just the way that I was brought up. So, you know, he always put a lot of pressure on me to, to perform and to succeed. The thing is, for me growing up was I grew up around boxing since I was 7 years old. My dad was a hall of fame promoter. He was a very influential and well known figure in the uk. And I was always Barry's boy. My dad's Barry Hearn, right? So everyone knew me as Barry's boy. No one knew my name. And growing up at 13, 14, 15, I quite like that because like, it's like, you know, my dad is, you know, we got Nazim Hamed, we got Lennox Lewis, we got all these guys my dad represents and I'm in the corner and I'm walking out with them with the belts. And I probably struggled a little bit with my own identity, you know, and I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be the successful businessman, I wanted to be a winner. And I grew up around sports. Sport molded my personalities. All of my, my best assets and my best qualities were built around sport, not through education. And that's why I'm very passionate about it in the UK as well, about what it can do for young people. But it was win, win, win, win. And that's exactly how I've been brought up. And my, I never wanted to work for my dad because everyone said to me, oh, you're only going to go and work for your dad, you're only going to. And it took me about six or seven years working in the sports industry to really realize I had to give my heart and soul to the legacy that he built. And you know, I take the business very personally. You know, it's something that he dedicated his entire life to and made so many sacrifices, vices for. And the only way that I can win in life is to be much better than him, to take the business to levels that he Couldn't take it. And that's our little competition. It doesn't matter whether we're playing ping pong or cricket in the garden. We're always at it, me and my dad, always. And that's the competitive spirit that he built in me. Not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but will never be outworked by any of my competitors.
- [07:21]
Patrick Bet-David
So let me ask you this. So you, you went away from working with them and then you went back to want to work with them?
- [07:27]
Eddie Hearn
I never worked for him when I left college. Yeah, I just said, look, so I went out, I wrote to all the big sports marketing companies, you know, img, Advantage International, Octagon, and I said, I want to, I wanted to be a sports agent. I wanted to represent athletes because I was a failed athlete. I was a good, good athlete, but never good enough.
- [07:44]
Patrick Bet-David
What did you play?
- [07:44]
Eddie Hearn
Cricket at a very high level and, you know, a few other sports, but I was never good enough to go professional. So for me, that was the next best thing.
- [07:51]
Patrick Bet-David
By the way, the audience needs to know this. I'm six four, he's 65. So you're, you're a big guy in boxing. I know you represented Josh. You represent Josh. He's 6 8, he's a big dude. But promoters, you don't, you don't find himself.
- [08:03]
Eddie Hearn
That's one of the first things that people say to me, you know, is my size. But, you know, I, I wrote off to all these major sports agencies and, you know, went for quite a few interviews and one company, you know, sort of sat me down, looked at my cv, said, can I ask you a question? Are you any relation to Barry Hearn? And I said, yes, my dad. I said, what are you doing here? I said, I don't want to work for him, you know, So I got a job there and worked for about six years for two different sports agencies. I was representing golfers on the European and the PGA Tour around the world. Yeah, good. I mean, built a very successful department within the agency. I just, you know, and this is something that resonates with me now. My heart was in the business, but my soul was in the family business. You know, I sort of looked at what my dad went through and it took him many years, by the way, to, to be successful and took us 40 years to be at the level that we're at now as a business. And I just felt like if I'm bleeding, you know, sweat and tears, I should be doing it.
- [09:04]
Patrick Bet-David
When did you go back to him? When did you go Back and say.
- [09:06]
Eddie Hearn
Let'S probably in my sort of mid to late 20s. What time would that be? I'm 45 now. So you're talking about about 20 years ago.
- [09:14]
Patrick Bet-David
Is this after the heart attack or is this pre.
- [09:16]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, he's, he's had a few. Actually. This was after his heart attacking the.
- [09:19]
Patrick Bet-David
One that he almost lost everything. Bankruptcy. I think it's O2 when this happened.
- [09:23]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, I mean that was a period of, you know, various different things going wrong. Obviously a terrible economic time in the UK as well. But for many years his business was, was up, down. I mean he's, you know, he's a, he's a very different to me in the respect of he's a, he's a chance taker, you know, and. But sometimes when you have nothing, it's easier to take chance.
- [09:46]
Patrick Bet-David
I want to show clip because the audience has to know how your dad is robbed. Can you play that clip I found earlier? This one right here, I just can watch this on repeat. Go ahead and play this clip. Go for it.
- [09:53]
Eddie Hearn
I had this thing with my children about. I love them so much, but when it comes down to it, are they going to be good enough in this world, you know, when dad's not there? I mean, Eddie's a great example. I can't believe how he's turned out. He's a credit to me and what he does and he's got a tremendous work ethic and he doesn't need to have. And yet there's something inside and that's what everyone's got to find. They've got to find, find that inner strength that takes them past ordinary people if they want to be special. What were the most important characteristics that you would have demonstrated or nurtured in.
- [10:22]
Patrick Bet-David
Him that gave him that drive?
- [10:24]
Eddie Hearn
I think it's just lessons. I mean, everything in our house is competitive. I played table tennis with my grandchildren on a Sunday. I don't let them win a point. Not a point. They win a point, they've won a point themselves every now and again. Baza, can't you let us win one? But it's getting closer and it's only a matter of time. And I was like that with Eddie. You know, we'd play cricket, I wouldn't hold back, I'd bowl flat out to him, no matter what age he was. Want to be in this game? We'll find out. I famously took him down to gym and we had what was supposed to be a proper three round fight. He dropped me twice in the second round. We never had to.
- [10:53]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you remember that?
- [10:54]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. People that. That was in the paper in the uk, like, people that had a real mixed response. Like, it's not. It's quite unusual, but actually, when you think about it, it's not. So he. I was quite flash as a kid, right. 14, 15, 16, because of how I grew up. And I boxed a little bit as an amateur. Had like a couple of fights. No good, but game. And he always said to me, when you get to 18, I'm going to take you down to gym. We're going to get the gloves on and we're going to spa and I'm going to give you a pasting and I'm going to show you the difference from where I came from to where you came from.
- [11:31]
Patrick Bet-David
He's a street guy.
- [11:32]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. And that's what it's going to be all about. I said, yeah, fair enough. Anyway, I got to 16 and I was like six foot one, you know, already quite a size.
- [11:41]
Patrick Bet-David
How big is he?
- [11:42]
Eddie Hearn
He's about the same, 6:1. And he sort of said, look, I think we should bring it forward a couple of years. So I was like, all right, look, I don't mind. And I'll never really forget it because we went to the gym where he had his fighters train and everyone was watching and we put the gloves on quite small for sparring as well.
- [11:59]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [12:00]
Eddie Hearn
And the bell went and I just saw him come out and he sort of backed me up in the corner and I covered up and I looked at his face and his teeth and his gum shield was like. And he was just raining them in around the side of my head, and I thought this. He ain't playing. Do you know what I mean? And I'm taking him, I'm taking him. And after, like, because he was. He wasn't as fit. And then I think it was a second round, you know, it's quite competitive. And he really started to tire. And we got up close and I just lifted him up to the body and he took a knee and I'm like looking at him on the floor and he's like, you know, the guys are counting the count. He gets up at 8. And then I walked him down, backed him up and done him, and he turned over, you know, rolling around on the floor. He's out. And the next day it was all in the papers, because when he was doing some interviews about some show he had, he was telling everyone, like, it was the greatest day of his life. Oh, my son. You wouldn't believe what my son did to Me, I would have been embarrassed, you know, say that my son beat me up. He was like, oh, he's proper.
- [12:59]
Patrick Bet-David
He's proper.
- [13:00]
Eddie Hearn
You know, I get that. And. But we did it. We did an interview with Pierce Morgan recently, and he was talking about it, and he was like, look, I gotta be honest, this is not really normal. He's like, what's. What's the matter with you?
- [13:09]
Patrick Bet-David
Of course.
- [13:10]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. And my dad's saying, what are you talking about? Of course it's normal.
- [13:13]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [13:14]
Eddie Hearn
You know, all this would be very quite frowned upon. And he said, oh, you know, that. That was his way. And like, he said about the table chance, like, literally against my daughter, who is 15. He is diving. He. He. He beat her 2119 the other week. Right. It was so close, and he was sweating, diving around. And when he won. Yes. Like, running around the celebrations. And she's, like, looking at him going, granddad, like, are you. He's like, you're so close. I reckon a couple more weeks and you're gonna get me, you know, and it's. It's not for everyone, but that. That's what built me.
- [13:51]
Patrick Bet-David
So a couple reasons why I'm asking you this question is because I have a son who is like your relationship. You and your father's relationship. And by the way, both of you guys are Geminis, correct? Your eighth. He's 19. Eighth and June 19th. I'm a Libra. My son is a Libra, and he's a psycho competitor. And God forbid, if we play and we. I don't let him beat me in nothing, but not nothing. And when he loses, it is not a pretty sight when he loses. When you lost, were you upset always?
- [14:18]
Eddie Hearn
I was. I was, yeah. I sulked. I hate losing. I hate it. You know? And as you become a little bit older and a bit more successful, like, things change a little bit. But especially as a kid playing sports. Bad. Bad loser. Bad loser.
- [14:32]
Patrick Bet-David
You were.
- [14:32]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, like. And that's okay. I always say to my fighters, you know, when AJ loses or anything like that, give him. Give him a little. Give him a day or two. And I sit down and say, are you okay? You know, and they're like, yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Does it hurt? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, is it killing you that you lost? He's like, yeah. I said, good, because he's got really fucking hurt bad like you.
- [14:58]
Patrick Bet-David
It's gotta. Or it's gonna.
- [14:59]
Eddie Hearn
It's got to.
- [15:00]
Patrick Bet-David
It's got. If it doesn't hurt, how do you get back into train?
- [15:02]
Eddie Hearn
And that's when it's time to maybe look at your future. If it doesn't eat you up, if you don't, you know, virtually cry yourself to sleep. If you're not struggling to sleep, if you're not replaying that fight back in your head and feeling the pain of defeat, maybe it's time.
- [15:17]
Patrick Bet-David
You ever had one when you sat across, when you're like, this guy's done. You got.
- [15:20]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, yeah. Loads of, you know, times where even after the fight, you know, you go back to the hotel and you can just see a fighter, you know, one. One of my best friends in the sport, guy called Darren Barker, who's my first world champion, won the world middleweight title in Atlantic City. He had a lot of injuries in his career. His next fight, that was like the pinnacle of winning the world title. No one expected him to do it.
- [15:39]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [15:40]
Eddie Hearn
And then the next fight, he took a big payday against Felix Sturm in Germany. He had bad, bad hips. And during the fight, he got injured and he got stopped in, I think, two rounds. And we went back to the hotel, and he sat back and he's. I think his mum bought him a beer, and he just. He just. I just looked at him sit back and go. And he just took a sip of his beer, and I looked at him, I went, you're done, aren't you? And he went, yeah, but have you.
- [16:04]
Patrick Bet-David
Ever had it where they thought they're continuing, but, you know, no, this guy's dumb. Well, you got to tell him to their face.
- [16:10]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, that's the hardest thing. You know, a fighter will always want to fight. I mean, so easy to say just one more, you know, but in the fight game, just one more can be devastating in many ways. And I just feel like sometimes legacy can be kept intact, especially if you're Anthony Joshua. I mean, he just lost by knockout for the world heavyweight title. It's a fight where he was a slight favorite for, and now everyone's on him because this is the British way. You know, he went on a run of four wins, and everyone's like, he's back. He's better than ever. And then he loses for the world heavyweight title. He should retire. He's done. You know, and that moment, that's when you really got to think, you got to see the desire. But boxing's a little bit different. You know, you got to be physically 100%. If you start fading, if you start taking too many shots, if you're not, you know, as robust as you used to be, especially in a heavyweight division, becomes very dangerous. And that's all down to relationships with the fighters to make sure you can have those honest conversations. Because when I feel like it's time for him, I will be saying, mate. And I believe when I say that, I think he'll go, I'm done. Because he will listen to a few around him that he will always want to fight. Because imagine how scary it is you've dedicated your whole life to something. Boxing is so regimental. And this is why it saves people from certain environments and situations, because it actually gets their life in a structure. So you wake up in the morning, you do your run, you go back to bed, you go back to the gym, you spar 12 rounds, you come back, you get your physio, you go to sleep, you wake up tomorrow, you do the same thing. And when that leaves your life, fighters really struggle after that, because what, what else? I mean, that's all they do. And the buzz of fighting, the walking out in front of 90, 000, all of a sudden, that goes in your life. And that's why it's got to be. That void has got to be filled with something that you have a passion for. You know, maybe that's been a trainer, maybe that's staying in the game.
- [18:03]
Patrick Bet-David
Is there a way to size them up? Like, for example, you know, in, in football, NFL, there was this guy, what was a guy, quarterback from the Oakland Raiders, something Russell, this guy gets a big contract, boom, he's done. You don't see anything from him. Jamarcus Russell, right? And in the NBA, there's certain guys, you pay them, it's over with baseball, this guy got paid. Nothing happens after. It's like, what happened to you, right? How do you. When these guys all of a sudden, like, you know, some guy said, you know, Conor McGregor's best fights was pre him becoming rich. And one of the quotes by your dad is what it says, you will run a better business in life if you think you're poor, right? The poor mentality, the broke mental, not poor mentality, but you, like, keep that hunger. Do you shape their mindset? Like, I remember when we sold our insurance company and we got a few hundred million dollars and I'm sitting there with my wife and we're talking to Monica and I said, babe, life's about to change in a big way. You're no longer a millionaire. We have money. I'm still going to work the next day, and I don't like it. If you just want to go to the spa every day and just go hang out. I'm not attracted to that. And you have to know I'm still going 80 hours a week, right? And we're having this conversation and I said, family's going to call you, everyone's going to want money. Everyone's going to tell you this. Everyone's going to. And we're having this three and a half hour conversation and it's like a moment of joy and you're emotional, but at the same time it's like, hey, I'm not losing my edge. I'm going on a 40 year run. I'm having a conversation with her and my wife till today. Five days a week she's at the office. Every day she comes in the office with me and boom, works hard herself. Till today. Kudos to her. But while you're going through this and you're picking one of your fighters, how do you shape their mindset when you know this guy's about to make the kind of money he's been waiting for his entire life? He hasn't made it yet. I'm talking real money. How do you have that conversation with him to see how he's going to be the next thing when he sees the money in the bank account?
- [19:50]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, that's about personal relationship. But a lot of that has to come from within. There's very few characters and very few competitors and athletes that don't change when the legacy and the money hit. Probably my best example of that is Canelo Alvarez, right? There's a guy who's got hundreds of millions, right? Used to sell ice pops on the street of Guadalajara, came from absolutely nothing and now is making him 40, $50 million a fight. Doesn't even need to fight anymore. He trains and aj, but he trains with the same hunger that he cat had when he was fighting a four round fight at 17 years of age.
- [20:29]
Patrick Bet-David
What do you think he's in pursuit of? What's in a pursuit of?
- [20:32]
Eddie Hearn
I just think they're winners. I just think they're winners. I just think the ones we all know the key word consistency. That's the one thing that's always going to provide you with success. If you work hard enough and if you've got talent, you're unbeatable. The only thing that's going to stop Canelo Alvarez, he's father time, that's all. And eventually it'll catch up with him. But how do you. Especially boxing, you know boxing, such a tough sport. Like, you know, today I was up at Delray Beach. I was watching our 140 pound light welterweight world champion, Liam Sparrow. Spa, 10 rounds, right? No money in the spa, just the preparation, all out war, you know what I mean? Like, this wasn't someone who was like knocking some balls around a court. This was a fight in a gym with no one watching. At what point do you come from nothing? Build 3 or 400 million, you've got your properties, everything. And you say, I want those hard.
- [21:29]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, I want those hard.
- [21:30]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, come hit me. And it's like, what point do you have to walk away and go, I don't need to do this anymore? You know? And that's where you've got to keep that relationship. Because when that hunger goes, you got to get them out.
- [21:40]
Patrick Bet-David
Would you put Mayweather in that same league as Count May?
- [21:42]
Eddie Hearn
We just love money.
- [21:44]
Patrick Bet-David
Mayweather love money. So Canelo's.
- [21:46]
Eddie Hearn
You're saying Canelo loves money, but Mayweather was different. Mayweather was a guy that was spending, spending, spending, spending. He loved money, he loved racking money up. Don't forget that. He had a passion for the sport. Passion is key to everything. You know, you talk about your wife going into the office, there's a reason for that. She loves to do it. You can't, you know, it's not, it's not. Because, you know, I'm sure there's an obligation and, you know, it's a team and all that kind of stuff, but there's a drive and there's a passion and there's a fire. Otherwise, like this with me, I work all day, every day, no breaks ever. I love what I do. And if I didn't love what I do. Yeah, you sort of, you keep going, but not with the same intensity, not with the same passion.
- [22:27]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, fascinating. Going back to these guys, Canelo, Mayweather, when you see something like the Jake Paul and the Mike Tyson thing coming up right now, I've heard you make comments about it already and I even remember your interview with Jake. Matter of fact, if you have that clip, Rob, and I love the way you're doing it. And you know what I love about this clip? Well, let me first have the audience watch this. This is Eddie. You're telling Jake he's average and you're trying to tell him that, trust me, me telling you your average is a compliment and he's having a hard time with it. Go ahead and play this clip, Rob. One minute. How do you even assess how good I was?
- [23:06]
Eddie Hearn
Well, because I said I didn't know, actually, you call me average after one.
- [23:10]
Patrick Bet-David
Minute but you call me after one.
- [23:12]
Eddie Hearn
Minute of my first professional fight. No, but you're still average. You're not. True.
- [23:17]
Patrick Bet-David
I just beat a five time world champion ufc. You don't even know. You don't know my ability though.
- [23:22]
Eddie Hearn
Well, that's true, that's true. You don't, I don't know where you might go. I'll just give you where I think you're at, which I'm entitled to, which is average. Average is very complimentary to you.
- [23:35]
Patrick Bet-David
Are you, are you trying to get under his skin at the time, is it? Yeah, probably trying to get under, yeah.
- [23:40]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, a little bit, you know, in that kind of arena. One, it's about entertainment. Yeah. Two, I'm being honest, he's very average as a fighter, as a professional. But what I was trying to sort of explain to him was as a professional fighter, someone that's dedicated their life to the sport from most people from the ages of 7 or 8. You started boxing at 24, you are average in that field. That's an unbelievable achievement. You know what I mean? I'm not average at boxing. I'm terrible. I'm, you know, so you're so much better than me and so many other fighters who have dedicated their life to the sport. But, and then, and then after a while it's just about fucking with him a little bit, you know, and you know, me and Jake, we've had, we've got big defamation case against him at the moment. And this week my fighter, Katie Taylor, greatest female fight of all time, is fighting his fighter Amanda Serrano on that undercard.
- [24:38]
Patrick Bet-David
Is this the million dollar bet you guys made or you guys didn't end up making?
- [24:40]
Eddie Hearn
No, that was before. Yeah, he, well, I won the fight, but he didn't apparently make the bet and you know, whatever, but we won the first fight. This is the rematch this Friday and it's on the undercard of the Jake.
- [24:53]
Patrick Bet-David
Paul, just the one in Dallas.
- [24:54]
Eddie Hearn
Correct. Which is a bit awkward because he doesn't really want me there and I've been quite critical of the main event. But the opportunity came for my fighter to fight on the undercard for a lot of money and I wasn't going to, you know, hold her back.
- [25:07]
Patrick Bet-David
Now can he say you can't come or no, you can go to.
- [25:09]
Eddie Hearn
Contractually not really. I mean, they've not been overly helpful with access for me.
- [25:13]
Patrick Bet-David
Got it.
- [25:13]
Eddie Hearn
And you know, I'm exclusive to Dazn, so is Katie Taylor. And I had to tell Dazn, you can't not let her take this opportunity. This is on Netflix, but part of the agreement, gentlemen's agreement, was that, I mean they wouldn't want me doing it anyway, but I won't be pushing the show on their behalf. And you know, they don't like the fact that I've been critical about the fight. But it's just, I'm honest, I'm not gonna, you know, Brown knows anyone. I'm going to give you it straight. And I don't like it. I don't like. I'm a boxing purist. Boxing is a massive part of my life and I don't want to see a 58 year old mike Tyson fighting. You know, it's dangerous and you know, people talk about, oh, there could be some, yeah, maybe there's an agreement between them that this will happen, that will happen. Now you've got 14 ounce gloves, two minute rounds. You know, I don't know, I don't want to see Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson at 58. But many will and I get it.
- [26:09]
Patrick Bet-David
When, when, when Tyson fought Roy Jones, who do you think was going to take it? Did you have an opinion on it or.
- [26:15]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, to be honest with you, Roy Jones is absolutely shot to pieces and he's been fighting for, for way too long. Like everybody in boxing knows that guy. So when they both get in the ring, you know, but how long ago was that? Four years ago.
- [26:29]
Patrick Bet-David
But I tell you, I couldn't, I couldn't believe that he was standing up. I, I couldn't believe he, by the way, 1.6 million pay per view, $80 million in revenue will fight between those two.
- [26:39]
Eddie Hearn
Wow, that's, that's, that's what it says.
- [26:41]
Patrick Bet-David
Right there on the bottom.
- [26:42]
Eddie Hearn
That's hearsay.
- [26:43]
Patrick Bet-David
With, with 3W examination, the fight sold over one point. Can you go to the link to see who wrote it? You're saying that's not true?
- [26:51]
Eddie Hearn
Report? I would say, yeah, I would say that's 100% not true.
- [26:54]
Patrick Bet-David
Really?
- [26:54]
Eddie Hearn
A lot of the time you get, I mean that could be a global number, that could be a replay number. A lot of the time, every time someone fights on pay per view, the numbers that come out are all over the place. You know, you got the haters within the industry that will be feeding the media with lowball numbers and then you've got the people involved with the fight feeding. I've done it. Do you know what I mean? Feeding real big numbers to try and get the message across that it was a huge success. That fight I believe took place on Triller. But you know, 1.6 million? No, I don't think so. But you know that, that would also be a global number. So maybe, maybe a million buyers, but I don't believe. I mean, certainly not in the US market. But, you know, that was a while ago now, wasn't it? I mean, I think, yeah, you're right. It was 20, 24 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.
- [27:42]
Patrick Bet-David
So. So this fight, the, the for you, the way you sound alike, you're saying Jake's gonna take this one.
- [27:49]
Eddie Hearn
I'd be astonished if he didn't. I mean, you got a young guy, right, who's average but can fight a little bit.
- [27:56]
Patrick Bet-David
Sure.
- [27:57]
Eddie Hearn
But the one thing I will always respect him for is he's dedicated himself to the craft now for four or five years. Okay. So he's training properly, he's doing proper training camps. He's definitely improving. Punch is pretty hard, like, physical guy. And then you've got Mike Tyson, who's 58 years of age. What you have to understand is Mike Tyson retired from boxing about 25 years ago, too. When he did, he was completely spent. That was 25 years ago.
- [28:24]
Patrick Bet-David
That's pretty wild thinking about it.
- [28:25]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, 58 years old. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm 45. I think. You're 46. Yeah.
- [28:31]
Patrick Bet-David
Right.
- [28:32]
Eddie Hearn
Like, we feel like, don't we, we're still there, don't we? This guy's 15 years or 14 years older than me. And like, if I went in there against Jake Paul now, he'd probably demolish me. I mean, I'm not Mike Tyson, but like, as, you know, Father Time, there's no replacement. Like, you could see. Listen, people say, oh, but people are buying into the fact that it's like, yeah, but it's Mike Tyson and surely he still carries the power.
- [28:55]
Patrick Bet-David
And like, is there any chance Mike could drop?
- [28:57]
Eddie Hearn
There's ev. There's a chance in every form of boxing. And Mike Tyson is a big guy. He's a former world heavyweight champion. But the speed and the power and the like, you know, listen, I'd love to see it. I'd love to see. I'd love to wake up.
- [29:10]
Patrick Bet-David
And how much is he getting paid for by?
- [29:11]
Eddie Hearn
I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, it's not a pay per view fight. It's quite interesting. It's subscription only on Netflix, which is great. It's going to do huge numbers. I would say 10 million.
- [29:20]
Patrick Bet-David
10 million?
- [29:20]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, I would say 10 million.
- [29:22]
Patrick Bet-David
So some, some of, some of the guys that are still fighting. It's Purely money thing, they need to make the money to make the money.
- [29:27]
Eddie Hearn
But a lot of them, Patrick, you know, a lot of fighters have been, I mean probably the greatest fight, the, the greatest example of a fighter that's been misrepresented and abused is Mike Tyson. You know, the money that was generated in his career, the reality is, is probably five years ago he was out of money. I mean he's actually had a good run now doing various bits and pieces. But how can you make hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars? And you know, and that's a very common theme particularly with fighters in the 80s. Like things have changed now. The fights always say, and people like Aram, even my dad, you know, Frank Warren, they really struggle. I say this, every fighter that I represent is my boss. It doesn't matter if they're in a four round fight on their debut or they're fighting for every belt in the division for 100 million. I work for them. And it's very difficult for those old school guys to have that same mentality because back in the day the promoter, you work for the promoter, you know, that's why people like Don King, you know, when he was representing Mike Charleston, he was the boss. Mike did as he's told. Now it's a complete flick.
- [30:34]
Patrick Bet-David
When did it change?
- [30:35]
Eddie Hearn
I would say like Mayweather probably did a lot of it. You know, Mayweather kind of set the way for fighters being their own bosses, you know. No, I control the revenue because that for me is the purest form of the business. You give a fighter a purse, right? You're fighting for the world middleweight title, I'm giving you a million dollars. You look at it with your team, you look at the deal, you accept it. When the fighter gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, you move to an open book policy which for me is the perfect structure to have a great relationship with a fighter. I did it with Antony Joshua, many other fighters, you sit down, you know, most of the time it's with the guys that really understand the business. Floyd, this is where Floyd comes in. You look at the revenue, projected revenue, revenue new, know that exists the gate, you know, that's selling out 100%. The pay per view is always subjective to the night. But you know, if you're a big name fighter, the region it's going to be in closed circuit television, a commercial sponsor, the international rights, all the revenue and you say to the fighter, this is the costs of the show, okay? This is the undercard, this is the venue, hire, hotels, flights, etc. Etc, etc. You cap the costs. It's an open book. The net profit of the show goes to the fighter and the promoter takes 20. And you never. Because what happens is a 20 of net. Yes, 20 of net. Not gross, no net. Because you agree to costs.
- [32:00]
Patrick Bet-David
Okay, so let me ask you a question. So if it starts at 20 million, how much is going to end up being cost?
- [32:05]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, you know, if you're talking about the costs of a show, could be anywhere between one and a half and $3 million to run a show.
- [32:11]
Patrick Bet-David
So let me ask you then, if it's, if it's, the guy's getting paid 6 million, it doesn't matter. The one and a half is fairly.
- [32:18]
Eddie Hearn
Consistent sometimes, but maybe the cost of the undercard would decrease. If it's a mega show you want other world title fights on, etc.
- [32:25]
Patrick Bet-David
Etc.
- [32:26]
Eddie Hearn
Ticket prices are through the roof. You want to deliver a great night of boxing. It all depends. But generally that concept is only for the huge names. Canelo, Floyd, aj, you know, these kind of names. The others might just say, I just want my purse. Just, I don't want to, I don't want to look at any numbers. Just tell me how much I'm getting. The problem with that is they never, you know, they walk into a venue, they go, how much money is he making? You know, how many pay per view buys did it though? And then like that, someone says, it did 2 million buys, it did what? The promoters made 50 million. That's why I love the open book, because it's so transparent, you know, and we, I'm happy with those margins. You know, you talk about AJ, these guys making, you know, 40, 50, 60 million a fire, you know, and sometimes that 20% will decrease over time when a fight starts making more money, because they might say to you, actually 20% is a lot of money. And most of the time I go, yeah, I mean, I think we're responsible for a lot of your success. But I also think you're right, it is a lot of money. So moving forward, it's 15. You know, I think you've got to be fair and you've got to be honest and you've got to be transparent. That's how you build long term relationships with talent.
- [33:35]
Patrick Bet-David
What is the role you play? So because the art of a promoter, I'm fascinated by promoters. What's the role of a promoter? Because it's got to be different than you got the agent, you got the manager. What role is the promoter playing? What are you doing with me I'm a fighter. What kind of conversations are we having?
- [33:53]
Eddie Hearn
So many different levels to it. I mean, taking me aside for now, the company, the business, you know, when you're talking about away from the shows and you're pitching to an athlete, you've just turned professional, right? You need to, you need to be guided in the correct way. You need to have regular activity, five or six fights a year. You're going to have six, six round fights a year. You're going to be able to build your profile, you're going to be able to make sure you're made, the matches are made against the right opposition. We're going to build you internationally, we're going to put you in America, in London, in Saudi Arabia, in Mexico, and we're going to give you all the experience you need to mold you into a championship fighter. Now the business, when you talk about what is, what is their role? Absolutely everything from the TV deals, you know, their role, meaning the promotional, promotional.
- [34:41]
Patrick Bet-David
Company, not agent, not manager, not these guys.
- [34:44]
Eddie Hearn
The manager's role is really to deal with the promoter. I got to be honest with you, for me, I always feel like if you've got an honest promoter, the manager's job is sometimes a little bit redundant. But you know, it's a middle ground to, to push, push.
- [34:57]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you guys not get along? Like do managers and promoters typically have who has fights with who, who doesn't? Friction is where.
- [35:03]
Eddie Hearn
So a promoter's job is to pay the right money for the fighter, as in for the show and for the fighter to make the business work.
- [35:10]
Patrick Bet-David
Right?
- [35:11]
Eddie Hearn
The manager don't give a fuck about a promotional business. They just want as much money as possible for their fighter.
- [35:16]
Patrick Bet-David
Got it.
- [35:17]
Eddie Hearn
A lot of them get it, a lot of them don't. And the fascinating thing, and that's why boxing is such a tough business, there are no barriers to entry in boxing. So tomorrow you could wake up and go, you know, I like that chat with Eddie Hearn. I think I'm going to manage fighters, right? And next thing you're phoning me up saying, can I come and see you? Because guess what? I'm now representing this guy, this guy and this guy. And I'm like, okay, and we have a meeting. You go, I've been thinking, I think this guy should get $10 million. I'm like, on what planet? No, but I think that's, you know, Saudi Arabia and this and that. And, you know, and now I'm saying, no, no, I'll tell you what, I'll show you the p L for the show. And you tell me how he should get $10 million. I'm not really interested in that. I just, you know. And that's like the frustration of the business. It's not a normal business. You're not dealing with people who have gone through the educational process about a P L in boxing. Do you know what I mean?
- [36:10]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [36:10]
Eddie Hearn
You're just dealing with someone who said, I don't care what it says.
- [36:12]
Patrick Bet-David
Well, let me tell you. Did you see the interview with the Rock? When I asked them about the negotiation he did with Vince McMahon, he said something so interesting. I said, so Vince McMahon, he built a $10 billion company. What was it negotiating with him? And he said, how long is it? It's too long. But I'll just tell you what he said. He says, one day I go to Vince, I say, hey, Vince, you know, I've been doing great and I want to get paid. He's okay, great, what do you want to get paid? He says, what does Stone Cold Austin get paid, Steve? He says, a million. He said, I want to get paid 2 million. He says, can I ask you how you came up with that number? So he says, the way I came up with that number is I just want to get paid twice as much as what the number one guy's getting paid. And he says, okay, fair, but do you mind if we do something? And the Rock says, what? He says, do you mind if we take the next two or three months, you work with the CFO in accounting and see exactly how this thing works out? So the Rock says, fine. So he says, it took a few weeks. I go and spend time with the CFO and the accountant. And then I realized I can't ask for 2 million. So he comes back and he says, look, three weeks later they have the follow up meeting. He says, so what do you want to do? He says, well, listen, I'll be happy with the million. He says, no, let me tell you what I want to do. I want to tie it for you. You'll get your million, but if you perform and sell these out, I want to pay you above and beyond. So the Rock says, fine. Year goes by. Vince sits down with him. He says, so what do you think you made last year? Says, I don't know, about a million bucks. He says, no, you made 15 million. He said, what? He says, that's when I realized the game, the business aspect of the business, right? More I got involved, I realized the more I can sell tickets, the more I can move. They make money. I'll make money. But you're saying managers don't think. Like that's the problem.
- [37:54]
Eddie Hearn
You know, sometimes a manager is talking to you about talent and they don't sell tickets, they don't drive subscriptions, and that's, you know, that's a major problem.
- [38:01]
Patrick Bet-David
So what risk do you take? Do you take a risk and say, you know, I don't know if I'm. If I'm, no matter what, got to pay this guy 10 million with. Or I sell a single pay per view, If I sell 2 million, do we want to take this risk? And how do you make that decision?
- [38:12]
Eddie Hearn
Timing. Position in the marketplace, you know, position with your new broadcaster. So many different things. You know, the way you're feeling that day, you know, the punt that you want to take the position your business is in, in the industry. I mean, so many different things. Most of the time we will make, you know, decisions without emotion. That's key. Based on the reality of the numbers. Yeah. My dad's a chartered accountant, one of the youngest ever qualified.
- [38:39]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [38:39]
Eddie Hearn
And he has drummed into me since day one. Numbers, Numbers.
- [38:43]
Patrick Bet-David
He was a snookers guy. He was, yeah, yeah.
- [38:45]
Eddie Hearn
Created all the, you know, the major.
- [38:46]
Patrick Bet-David
Wasn't he like the chairman of the board, like 2010 or something like that? He was the, the. Yeah.
- [38:51]
Eddie Hearn
But, you know, I think, I mean, I don't know, I'm sure you've seen the McMahon show on Netflix. I mean, he made me feel very normal, you know. But again, you talk about that winning mentality.
- [39:02]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [39:02]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, dangerous at that level because it becomes, you know, I mean, winning is always everything to me.
- [39:09]
Patrick Bet-David
But what is the biggest losing fight for you, business wise, where you walked away and said, we lost millions on this one.
- [39:16]
Eddie Hearn
So it was Anthony Joshua just lost at Madison Square Garden to Andy Ruiz. It was a huge upset. Like, we had the. The number one fighter in the world. I remember Jarell Miller failed drug tests three weeks before the fight. We didn't have an opponent. We wanted a real fight because we were sold out. You know, Ruiz was this fat guy, but he was a very good fighter. And we went with Ruiz and AJ wasn't right. Anyway. Anyway, he gets stopped at Madison Square Garden and I'm like. And it's like, now Mattram. Oh, Hearn's in trouble. Mattrum, what are they going to do without aj? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, right, we need to bounce back. And the team are like, well, what do you mean? I said, lomachenko, right. One of the great fighters at the.
- [40:03]
Patrick Bet-David
Time when I say lose, I mean money. You lost money on that?
- [40:05]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about what's coming now. I said bring Lomachenko to London. We got a lightweight called Luke Campbell. Lomachenko is one of the greatest fighters. He's never fought in the UK. We'll sell out the O2, do massive pay per view numbers. Get the deal from Aram. Tell me how much I got to pay him. And they offered us a deal to bring Campbell to America and we would have made a million dollars by taking him to America. I went that we do it in London because we're going to bounce back after aj. Anyway, we sold out, but the pay per view flopped. Flopped. So we, we probably lost a million bucks there as well. But also the swing of taking him to America. And it was just, that was one of my big blessings because it was like, just don't ever, ever make decisions based off emotion again. Do you know what I mean? Calm, you know, and that's what experience brings over time. And, you know, my dad's actually always takes the mickey out of me for that, for that show, you know, and so does my CEO as well, and a few others. Do you remember when you decided to bring Lomachenko to the uk and he's an amazing fighter, but that was just like, yeah.
- [41:15]
Patrick Bet-David
Why do you think it didn't sell? How did it not convert?
- [41:17]
Eddie Hearn
Because he, there's, there's a. You have to understand the business. There's a big difference between the hardcore fight fan and the casual audience. And the guys that can interact and sell in the casual sports fan market are the guys that drive the huge, huge pay per views. Canelo Alvarez, Anthony, Joshua Floyd Mayweather. He has, he captivates. Lomachenko is a hero of the hardcore boxing fanatics, but that's a tiny, tiny percentage of the ecosystem.
- [41:46]
Patrick Bet-David
So question for you. When I hear what some people say about you, Frank Warren. Eddie talks a good game, but he doesn't always deliver. He's more interested in being a celebrity than a promoter. Simon Jordan. Eddie Hearn is more about self promotion than the sport. And so he's turning it into a circus. Right. Bob Arum. Eddie is a young guy who thinks he knows everything. He's got a lot to learn about the business. And then a lot of guys say he's all about entertainment. He's all about entertainment. All the stuff that they say, right? How much of it today, like our media company's name is valuetainment. On election night, we're going up against abc, cbs, cnn, fox, everybody. We had more people watch our podcast on election night than anybody else worldwide. Everybody was blown away by. They're like, why would people watch this year? This is the data that came out showing up the report. And we looked at this. Rob, text me and says, pat, look where we're ranking. This is. This is that night. Okay. We had us ahead of everybody, right? And by the way, we're a bunch of amateurs. I'm not in the space. It's not like we do this for a living. And it's a podcast. We've only been doing this for four years. We had 283,000 people concurrent watching the podcast all night with us. Now, we had. Here's what the difference was. We had 2,000 people in a hangar, new property that we bought. Next time you come here, we'll do the podcast at the other property right by the airport. We had entertainment. We had all these shows. And we're talking about a serious issue, which is what? Politics, how much you think you know, ticket sales, selling. It is about the showman, the storytelling, the entertainment versus the matchup. What percentage? If you were to say, look, man, if I can get the controversy behind the story, behind it, the this, the that, like, you know, the movie, what is it? Warrior, when he got Tom Hardy in it, he's like, man, I don't know. If you watch this movie. I watch this movie so many times, you're like, and the final story has it. It's the two brothers facing each other. Father, da, da, da, da, da. Nick Nolte. That scene in the hotel room with Tom Hardy shows up, just can't stand his dad, but he's drunk and he's hanging on to him. And you see the fight, breaks his arm and the fights, such an emotional movie. But there's a story behind it, right? How much of it is entertainment story versus the actual matchup of the fighters?
- [44:03]
Eddie Hearn
Virtually all of it. I mean, virtually all. Because what I said about that hardcore fight, you make a great fight. This, this small audience, hardcore fight fans. They're the loudest, by the way, as well. They're all in.
- [44:16]
Patrick Bet-David
5%. Is that 5% about that. Okay.
- [44:18]
Eddie Hearn
This is the casual God damn big. What I am. You talked earlier about. The reason I said take me away from the equation.
- [44:25]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [44:26]
Eddie Hearn
Is because that's what the team do. What I do is I'm a storyteller. I build the narrative. I make you buy in to the.
- [44:34]
Patrick Bet-David
Story and be the viewer.
- [44:35]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. And one of the reasons all those people say the things about me is about 10 years ago, I looked at the UFC business, I looked at WWE and I thought, what they got in common, Dana white and Vince McMahon. That's the voice, that's the figurehead, that's the guy in the sport. When I say to you, ufc, what do you say to me, Dana White? When I say to you WWE, what do you say? You say Vince McMahon. So why can't I build my own brand and my own personality and character within boxing that you're not always talent led. And the great things about those businesses, WWE or TKO now and you know ufc, same part of the same group, the brand. And Dana is so strong that when they go into new markets, there's already the profile, there's already the brand recognition, there's already the respect from the customer. And that's what we did. We're the only global promotional company in the world for boxing in multiple markets. And every time I go to a new country, they know who I am now. They want to know who's fighting. But me being there and boxing being there, a match room being there, is enough to penetrate that market. And that's why UFC and, and WWE have been so successful. So back to your question. That's what I am. I'm a salesman. I've been a salesman since I was 14 years of age. It's my greatest asset. It may be one of my very few talents, but that's what I do. I get up there. I'm the only promoter in the world that runs their own press conferences. I don't have members of the media introducing me to say a few words. I run the whole thing. It's my show. I'm the greatest showman. That's what our show is called on Netflix coming up. That's my job. I never have any notes. Every promoter will go up there. You see them with their piece of paper. We just want to say, this Saturday at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, we've got eight fights. Fuck that. I've never had one note in my 20 years of promoting boxing. I go up there, most of the time, I don't even know what I'm going to say. I've got 16 fighters sitting up here, from four round fights to world championship fights. I'll turn up, I'll do my interviews. And the live feed, the floor manager will go, we're going live in 3, 2, 1. I've absolutely no idea what I'm about to say. And I'll tell you, the entire card, the entire fighters, their entire records, their entire stories. All within one 45 minute show. And that's because I live and breathe it every single day. And I'm the only promoter in the world that does that. The last promoter that did that was Don King, probably one of the greatest promoters of all time. Not in terms of his ethics, but in terms of the ability to know there was a show in town. Don King would make. You know, that guy would go around with a megaphone on the streets of New York, screaming and shouting. And that's what it is. It's a dying breed of promoter.
- [47:38]
Patrick Bet-David
Let me ask you. So pops 10 rules for life, number 10 when you need a number nine, avoid being a secret. If you're good, then admit it. If you're great, then shout it from the rooftops. You just presented yourself as extremely confident that not just you're great. I mean, do you see yourself as a better promoter than any of these guys, minus Don?
- [48:03]
Eddie Hearn
You think it's you and Don on a different level.
- [48:05]
Patrick Bet-David
You think you're on a different level?
- [48:06]
Eddie Hearn
Different level because they can't do Bob Aaron, Bob Aram's 93 years. The thing that Bob will have me on right now as we sit here and talk is longevity. And now you've got to respect the hustle. He's 93 years old. You know, people keep saying to me, how much longer do you want to do this? You know, you're on the road, you're doing this. I said, well, I love it. Well, you know, if I stopped doing this, I'd be miserable probably. But I don't know whether that's 50, 60, 70. Bob's 93. Are you mad? But Bob did Thriller in Manila, Rumble in the Jungle. I mean, you know, I can't in, in terms of legacy, I can't yet compete with Bob Aron because that comes over time. But what I can do is in terms of ability, in terms of selling, in terms of promoting, in terms of engaging the audience and spinning the narrative, you know, And I don't care to say I'm the greatest promoter of all time, because that's what I truly believe. And life is about confidence as well. What do you want me to do, wake up and go, I'm average, You know, oh, no, I'm, I'm, I'm okay, but I'm not as good as that guy. No, I'm better than you all. And I'll show it now in this press conference. Turn the mics on and go live, you know, and that when you live and you breathe it, you have the confidence to Be able to do that kind of stuff. I can talk any time about any fight, any fighter, any situation. And of course, the bigger you get and the bigger your business gets, the less fear you have anyway. So you end up just being completely honest because you don't give a fuck. You know, I care about the business, I care, but. But really, I don't care what people think, I don't care what people say. I want to create storylines, I want to create narrative. I don't want to be a clown. You know, we're running a hugely successful company, but you've got to be talking about us. You know, the reason people want to watch your show is because you're creating narrative, you're creating opinions, you're interacting with the audience. That's the difference. You know, you look down that list that you just presented and you've got NBC at what, I don't know, 30th, you know, a major, major broadcaster that's institutionalized in the world of elections and politics. And you got three times the viewership on a feed. You know, that's where the world's changed completely. I want to interact and I was one of the first promoters of that generation to do that on social media. And I was not lucky. But my timing was good because Aaron wasn't going to get out on Twitter and start interacting with fight fans. Frank Warren was, you know, didn't know what the app was. You know, by the way, you just.
- [50:36]
Patrick Bet-David
Brought me to two questions here, but I'll go to the first one first. Don King, when you, when you look at him, what made him special? Have you guys had interaction together?
- [50:44]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, I don't like the way Don King does business. I, you know, I mean, there's been a lot said over the years, but he was a pure promoter. I still watch him now. He's 93. He's the same age as Bob Aram.
- [50:55]
Patrick Bet-David
You know, he lives down the street from me. Yeah.
- [50:57]
Eddie Hearn
And Hollywood, right?
- [50:58]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [50:58]
Eddie Hearn
And like, he's not, he's not like, still promoting. He does a few shows, but even when he switches it on. I watched an interview with him the other day. I mean, he's not, his health's not in an amazing place, but I just watched an interview with him the other day because it's 50 years since the Rumble in the Jungle and he's trying to sell a show to Saudi Arabia to do a 50 year anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle. And I'm actually listening to him going, it, I'd do it, you know, and I'm thinking, he's unbelievable, you know, And I'm thinking, he comes on at first, I'm thinking, oh, here he goes. Here's Don King. What's he gonna say now? And then at the end of it, I'm looking at it going, you know what Turkey? Al Shaikh is the. You know, the. Our guy in Saudi. I think he'd probably do it. He'll probably do it. And it's, you know, he carries. He's, you know, he's another guy. He's a massive legacy.
- [51:45]
Patrick Bet-David
What is it? Is it charm? Is it charisma? Is it a little bit off?
- [51:49]
Eddie Hearn
Is, you know, sales is a transfer of emotion, right? And that's exactly the same when you're selling a fight. It doesn't matter if I'm selling you a photocopier. And I believe in the photocopier, right? It's got the best filtration system. That paper moves so smoothly to the top, and the ink never runs out. And when it does, it tells you on the LED screen. If I've got a piece of photocopier that gets jammed all the time, and I know that the ink don't run smooth, I can't deliver the same emotion. That's why the product is always important. You can bluff and you can be a great salesman, but the reality is, is the emotion that you have in that pitch is actually dependent upon the product that you're representing and the concept that you have and that. That, you know, I know. The reason I know that is because if I'm doing an average show, I'll do a press conference. You may not see the difference, but I'll feel the difference. You know, when I've got a huge show that week, I'm just on fire. I sit down at the press. I'm blowing off here, and, you know, the tough cells, you know, when you've gone to pitch someone, you're like, you know, and sometimes you get it through. Sometimes you sell out the arena, sometimes you do a great. But you think, oh, come on. Someone says, wow, how did he do that? That's great promotion. Okay, yeah, we got away with that one. But then you've got the great product, the great shows. They're the home runs. For me, that's the easy work, but actually, the harder work is. Is the tougher sell, and that's more of a challenge.
- [53:14]
Patrick Bet-David
What do you think makes. What's. What's Dana's gift and what's Vince's gift, in your opinion?
- [53:19]
Eddie Hearn
No fear.
- [53:20]
Patrick Bet-David
Dana's yeah.
- [53:21]
Eddie Hearn
No. No regard for what people think. I'm going to give it to you straight, you know, incredibly hard working. I mean, I don't know Vince. I know Dana quite well. He's always been extremely good to me. Very hospitable. Vince, from only what I saw in the Netflix, is a lunatic. But you look at him up again, I mean, he basically said, I'm going to be the guy. I'm the fucking star of the show. And I'm not letting the others win. Aw. Or whatever when they started out. And the thing with Vince, unfortunately, probably led to his demise is, whatever it takes, Whatever it takes, we're going to win.
- [54:03]
Patrick Bet-David
One of the stories where he's like. His daughter's like, no, I don't want to tell the story. He said, what's the craziest idea your dad ever came up with? I don't want to tell the story. And he told the story, remember that?
- [54:13]
Eddie Hearn
Impregnate his daughter. I mean, this is where it just goes to another level. And it's like that, that documentary. I sat there with my jaw open. Most of the doctor I couldn't stop watching. Yeah. Unfortunately. And you know, rest his soul, when the wrestler died.
- [54:25]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah. Owen Hart.
- [54:26]
Eddie Hearn
And they carried on the show and you know, they're telling the story about what happened. And he just said, and I had to make the decision, the show must go on. And I went, what? And he said, I would have wanted the show to go on if it was me.
- [54:39]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you believe him?
- [54:41]
Eddie Hearn
I just think. I mean, I was trying to think about myself being in that situation in a live event, when that happens at the show. I mean, you know how many people he would have overruled for that to keep that show on? Like, because I know my people would be saying to me, eddie, you have to cancel this show now. You know, But I just, I. I.
- [55:07]
Patrick Bet-David
Couldn'T believe, you know, how'd you rank that, that documentary?
- [55:11]
Eddie Hearn
Unbelievable.
- [55:11]
Patrick Bet-David
I couldn't stop.
- [55:12]
Eddie Hearn
Unbelievable.
- [55:13]
Patrick Bet-David
Two people texted me, Madison, Paula, and another Steve Avetti. I was like, you guys got to watch. I'm like, listen, I got. I don't have time to sit there and watch a six part Pat. Just start the first one and then make the decision afterwards. Netflix allows you to watch 1.5. I can watch stuff at 3.0 because I like Spotify, but I watch it at 1.5. I put the kids down. Friday night, Saturday night, 6, 10 o'clock, everyone's asleep. I go downstairs in my office, I watch first episode. I'm like, dude, I Gotta watch a second. I watched second one. Like give me a watch a third one. I get up on Sunday, 6:00 while everybody's. I go downstairs in my office. What's daddy doing over there?
- [55:47]
Eddie Hearn
Watch the next gets better and better.
- [55:49]
Patrick Bet-David
I could not believe how sick this was. The way he did what he did and the story with his kids and what happened.
- [55:57]
Eddie Hearn
Don't you think that is all the signs of power, not necessarily greed, but like. And it not. It wasn't even really money, was it? It was just power and control. And I think that's a great lesson of like. I actually think that sometimes people think that the more. I mean I think successful success is a great word to debate anyway. But people think that the more successful you are or better, the more successful your business is and the bigger you become and the wealthier you'll become, actually life becomes easier and easier. Whereas, you know, his life kind of spiraled out a little bit of control because of that pure want for winning. And that's why, you know, when we talked earlier about my childhood, that's actually something that I think you have to be careful of in life because at what point do you look back? Because all it is is win, win, win, win, win.
- [56:52]
Patrick Bet-David
You know what if you think about the, the, let's just say you, Vince, some of these guys, Dana, some of the guys we're talking about, the common threat is a very, very, very strong personality. Father. Yeah, think about that. Where it's like, you're going to do this. Watch what the I'm going to be doing. Watch what I do. Let me show you. You mother, you think you're the driver. Watch what the you're going to see. And it's almost like a little bit of psychotic edge that comes from that. Right. I'm going to go show the world. And by the way, it doesn't happen with everybody. It's normally one of the kids. Because to really go there, you have to be really going to a dark place to be willing to go through that pain if it doesn't matter to you. And then if you don't have control over your imagination, you can really go to a bad place and you can kind of, you know, have a different kind of relationship with your dad. You don't want to do that. But if you're able to come back, by the way, transitioning Bob Arum. Was it Bob Arum that said this about you? Let me read this to you. Very interesting. In a way, I see it as a compliment. Yeah, he said this about you, he said, you know, the problem with Trump is he talks too much. It's almost like Eddie Hearn is the President of the United States. That's another guy that talks too much, Right. When you hear him saying something like that about you, do you, do you take that as a compliment?
- [58:14]
Eddie Hearn
I guess so. I mean, I'm again, like, sometimes I border on the line of delusion about my own ability on, on things.
- [58:26]
Patrick Bet-David
You.
- [58:27]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, because I think I can do everything.
- [58:29]
Patrick Bet-David
Are you aware or you're not aware when you're in it?
- [58:31]
Eddie Hearn
I'm aware, but I'm also like, you know, I've, I've wound up the American promoters for many years because in the UK, sarcasm is seen as the greatest form of humor. It actually gets lost a lot in America. So I've done things where I've, you know, like there's this guy called Leonard Ellaby, works for Floyd Mayweather, and he's like. And I drive him mad. Like when he talks about me, he's throffing at the mouth and I'm like, loving it. And, and I said as a throwaway line once, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I, I see myself actually going into acting, right. Which I actually probably do, right. But again, just like delusion, right. I'd say it to my friends and they'd go, shut up. You know, And I said to him, I wouldn't. I said, this is an interview. Not to him. I said, I wouldn't even be surprised. They're auditioning for the new James Bond at the moment. Why not? Yeah, well, he's come out and he's like, did you see Hearn the other day? I mean, he's talking about being a new James Bond. I mean, what the is this guy up, like? And I'm watching him going, you're so angry. Wow. It was actually a throwaway line. And then I started thinking to myself, do you know what? I could probably do that, right, and see with Arab. And then recently I started talking in the UK about running for Prime Minister, right? And I'm like. Because my audience is the people, right? We do 10 different sports at Matchroom and they're all working class sport where the man on the street follows and watches, right? So I'm quite well known within that, that, you know, that, that place. And I was like, and we've got big problems in the UK at the moment, big problems. And I just came out and I was like, look, you know, make me the next Prime Minister, you know, And I was talking about some of not Necessarily the policies, but the problems in the country. And it's like, before you know it, like, actually, there's like this swell of support across social media, and it's like, you know what? I'd vote for it. Yeah, we could do worse. You know, all this kind of stuff. And it's like I said to my dad, you know what? I think I could do this. And he's like, I said, all right, well, if I ran for mp, right, member of the Parliament for Brentwood, which is where we're from, do you think I'd win? And he went hands down. But everyone knows me in the area. Like, you know, our family are very. We've lived there our whole lives. Like, I would 100% win. It's not a state.
- [60:47]
Patrick Bet-David
What is that comparable to here?
- [60:49]
Eddie Hearn
Not. Not a state, but, like. But it's a. You know, is it a county?
- [60:52]
Patrick Bet-David
Would it be considered a county?
- [60:54]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, it's a county of Essex, but I could pretty much win any seat within the county, which is like a state for you guys, right? Because especially how the country is at the moment and the need to do something and. And, you know, to advocate for change, but I'm just sort of messing around. Then you start thinking to yourself, you know. But when you say, like, that psychotic edge. There probably is a little bit of that. Because I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not. I'm not cracked boxing, but I'm. You know, we've. We're really on the way. What's next, Jude? And he's saying to me, do you know, with all the aggravation in your life, would you re. Could you think of anything worse than being Prime Minister of this country? And it's like. He goes, and stop. Just. Just. And I'm like, yeah, I'm only joking anyway. And I'm kind of sitting there going, no, but I mean, I am. I don't think I would. I don't think I'm bright enough to be Prime Minister. But then you look at what's happening around the world, you know, and then you just think, really? And we go back to, like, your show and the numbers and that kind of stuff. Actually, it's not necessarily about that. I mean, you go. Last week, I was talking at Wharton Business School, we had a show in Philadelphia, and I'm talking to all these incredible business graduates. And I'm thinking, like, you just. Some. Some people you tweet you and you go. And then a lot of that world is just like, who's gonna grab it by the horns and go and make it difference. And that's why I think people look at Trump and say, I don't necessarily like the guy, but I think he's going to get things done, you know? So, yeah, you. I don't think you're going to see me running for Prime Minister, but I like challenges and I'm 45 years of age. I don't know, you know, what's next.
- [62:36]
Patrick Bet-David
You're going to think I'm crazy when I tell you this, but the last 13 and a half years, I've been working on my first fiction book to write, ever fiction book to write. And while I finished this book a year ago, I got the strangest phone call about one of the characters in a book where the guy wanted to meet with me and he read the book and afterwards is like, wait a minute, am I the villain in the book? This is a story about a character named Asher who is half Armenian, half Assyrian, whose father was involved in the Iranian revolution, linked to Savak working with the Shah, that they escape, and he gets recruited to a secret society. Well, when you go to the secret society, it's been around for a couple thousand years, they've developed some of the craziest leaders of all time. And they test you. There's unique tests that they have at the society where they test to see your emotional, mental, toughness. One of the tests that they have is very rigorous. It's purely mental. Of course, there's a physical one, but one is mental and emotional. If you're Armenian, if you're Syrian, if you're Persian, this is a book you're going to be reading and saying, holy moly. This the kind of stuff you talk about in here? Yes. If you're somebody that's fascinated by history, this is a book for you characters. There's a technology that this society, secret society, builds where you go into a vault. I won't spoil it for you. When you go down, they have a technology where you get to sit down and watch and have a three, four hour conversation with Tupac. You can set up a debate between Karl Marx and Ayn Rand. Karl Marx is in the book. Who wrote Communist Manifesto. Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, is in the book. Marilyn Monroe explains the concept of seduction and sex in the book. When you read the book, it's about development of the next leaders in the world and how they do it and how they've been doing it for many years. And it's also about how to prevent the end of civilization and how this Organization goes about doing it. So I've never written a parenting book before, but if I ever wrote a parenting book, this is the closest thing to it because it's all mindset, a lot of crazy stories. Again, 13 and a half years. Trust me, I told myself I will not publish this book until I sell my insurance company and I'm fully disconnected from it where it's no longer My responsibility 100%. When you read this, if you're a crate, if you're a creative person, if you like fiction books, if you enjoyed Atlas Shrugged or if you enjoy Divergent, if you like books like that, I think you can enjoy reading this book. It's the creative side. Business books is very easy. Here's how you do it. Here's this how it works. This is very creative. If you haven't placed your order yet, now you can order it on Simon and Schuster, Amazon. I'm going to put the link up below somewhere here, maybe even in my profile. Go order the book and read it. I sincerely, I've never written a book where I can't wait to read your reviews to see what you think about this book. So I'm going on this wild journey and we have some plans with this book here. If you support the things that I work on, I would appreciate you going and reading the book. Order the book on Amazon and then post a review. You made a comment on a 16, 14 year old kid, Daniel, that got with a samurai sword, right, that got stabbed and died by 36 old. And all the stamping that's going on.
- [65:50]
Eddie Hearn
Over there, I mean we had recently, I think there was three or four people that passed away. It was, it was a Taylor Swift dance class and you know, a, a lunatic goes in and kills I think three or four young girls. You're talking seven, eight, nine years of age, I think six other people with, with a knife, right? And one of the problems right now, and this is a global thing by the way, this is not a UK thing, we have become so desensitized to things, haven't we? Because that thing happened a week later, it's forgotten. I mean look at your country where people will go into schools, you know, and you'll see mass shootings and it's like, I mean, I don't, I, I don't live here full time, but I don't, I don't get the feeling that this is like something that's mourned within the community for years and years and years. It's like, oh, there was another one over there. And that's what it's become in the uk. Oh, there was a mass stabbing today. Three people died. Oh, one died. You know, someone got stabbed in Brentwood up the road. To me, I'm like, what the. Like, there is absolutely no regard or respect for.
- [66:57]
Patrick Bet-David
How do you get there, how you've been there? I mean, that's. This is your, Your, Your, Your life.
- [67:02]
Eddie Hearn
You know, a mixture of things, I think. You know, generally, you know, I had this argument the other day with this sort of charity that they're a great job of. You know, I said that what we need to do is we need to impose immediate sanctions and, and, you know, time in prison for people carrying weapons. If you're caught carrying a weapon on the street in a stop and search, you do five years or you do 10 years, and then we don't have any room in our prisons. So they're releasing people early right now in the prison. Keir Starmer, you know, and then at the same time, the problem is coming through the system. Young people who don't have a role model at home, that don't have a family structure, are moving into, you know, gangs and bad. And I still. We do a huge amount for the Matrim Sport Charity foundation for Sport within the community. I'm telling you, Patrick, like you, you may not have been around boxing. You enter a boxing club as a young kid, it will change your life forever. All of the things that are lacking in society today with the younger generation, discipline, respect, manners, physical health, mental health, lack of barriers, winning, losing, teamwork, role models through the coaches. You get all of that when you go through a boxing club. And our government are closing down these clubs in the community because they're running out of money. So the kids that used to, the 60, 70 kids from the estate, you know, who used to go boxing every night, are just now sitting around on the stairs. Next thing, they're running parcels here, they're selling drugs here, they're getting involved, they're carrying weapons, you know, because, you know, I mean, how old are your kids?
- [68:45]
Patrick Bet-David
3? 8? 11, 12?
- [68:47]
Eddie Hearn
Like, I, I sometimes. I have two daughters, right? Sometimes I listen to how they speak to me and they're good kids. Do you know what I mean? But I'm like, you know, if I spoke to my dad like that growing up, he would have given me a beating. Like, kids these days, they just don't have the respect, even if they're good kids with good hearts. It's just things are changing, you know, they're. They're mesmerized. By devices. They've lost all kind of social interaction. One on one social interaction. And I see it because I'm a parent as well, you know. Come off that. All right, okay, all right. No, put it down. Do you know what I mean? Talk to me. You know. And that's a dangerous world because they just become sort of engrossed in this web of algorithm, you know.
- [69:32]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, I'm looking at this here, Rob. This is what police's British teen accused of fairly stabbing three girls also made poison and had fear had. Had a terror manual. What's a terror?
- [69:40]
Eddie Hearn
So this came out. So this is just a few days.
- [69:44]
Patrick Bet-David
Ago by the way.
- [69:45]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. Well we do have an immigration issue in the country. Right, Right. Which there is massive kind of almost like civil unrest about right now. And what happened was what they do is when this happened they don't like to release the name or the, the kind of background of the killer. Right. Because they don't want civil unrest. Now when they went through the full court hearing they actually found out that this guy who killed the children had an Al Qaeda manual and poison I believe explosives as well actually found in his house.
- [70:22]
Patrick Bet-David
What does it mean, an Al Qaeda manual?
- [70:24]
Eddie Hearn
Like a little Orab.
- [70:26]
Patrick Bet-David
What? So Axel, the 18 year old training.
- [70:31]
Eddie Hearn
Basically to you know, for terrorist activities.
- [70:33]
Patrick Bet-David
Was charged with possessing terrorism related material producing a toxin after an Al Qaeda training manual and highly toxic poison were found in his home disturbing in Southport town of uk. What's going on? Ignited far right far right across the country after a storm of misinformation emerged online that it's a newly arrived immigrant to the country. And now some British lawmakers have launched fresh accusations of government cover up is already charged with three murders of B.B. king, 6, 7 and 9. Kidding me. And the way the article is written right wing. Why isn't it saying left wing and right wing? Who cares what wing it is? If they're criticizing go a little low rap. So on Tuesday police said that two recent discoveries of homers and banks and smiles prompted them to slap on new charges. Toxin found in a car beans and a PDF file of military studies in Jihad against tyrants. The Al Qaeda's training manual. Wow.
- [71:31]
Eddie Hearn
And you know it was like they didn't want this information to come out.
- [71:34]
Patrick Bet-David
Why didn't.
- [71:35]
Eddie Hearn
Because they knew we talked about. Yeah, there were riots recently in the country. In the country. And they felt that it would escalate the riots.
- [71:43]
Patrick Bet-David
I saw this fella, this, this guy Tommy Robinson did something, I don't know if you know who he Is Tommy. He. I think Pierce had him on, did an interview with them. Tommy Robinson talked about what's going on there. Did Tommy go away, by the way?
- [71:55]
Eddie Hearn
I believe so, yeah. Thank you.
- [71:57]
Patrick Bet-David
Can you see if Tommy went to jail? Rob, just go to Tommy arrested jail. There you go. It's fine. Either one of them for 18 months. For what? For that documentary. What's he jailed for? Jail for 18 months after he admitted to being Peter Falls exam. She's in the Russian Whose real name is this Men on Monday, Virgin Kate Wilton Robinson, the founder of. Yeah, he made a documentary that got, I don't know, 80 million views and showed some of the chaos that was going on. This place, it, it's, it's wild. You know, I lived in Iran for almost 11 years, and part of it, we left. I mean, Christian family was kind of tough. You, you go into school, your parents are telling you, don't tell anybody where, you know, we lean politically or where what religion is. Just tell them, talk to mommy and Daddy. I don't know. Talk to Mommy and Daddy. I don't know. And, and then I lived in Germany for a year and a half at a refugee camp, and then we came here. Man, it's. It's a wild place, your country. Would you ever leave it? Are you at a point that you don't feel safe?
- [73:00]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, there was just a. We've got a new government. We have a labor government in now that are kind of historic in terms of taxing, you know, raising the taxes. And I always say that, you know, I mean, we're a huge contributor of tax in the uk. I have no problem with that at all. But when my children aren't safe to walk the streets, it makes you just think about, you know, your, your financial commitment to the country and actually, more importantly, the safety of your children. Do you want to, do you want them to grow up there? You know, and they, they, they raise the taxes not as harshly as what was anticipated in the last budget, but at the same time, it's not even really about the money. It's just. Is it a place that you want to live in? You know, there are plenty of places around the world that are much, much safer. But you also want your child to have a normal life, you know, to grow up in that. How old are they school? 15 and 12.
- [73:52]
Patrick Bet-David
And you're married?
- [73:53]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [73:54]
Patrick Bet-David
Is your wife from there? Is she, or is she American or she uk?
- [73:57]
Eddie Hearn
But the kids, for, for me, the kids are like, you know, it's so difficult because you can take them to this nice place and this nice school and like an international business school and stuff like this. And it's like, do you want them to live that life? Do you want that? Do you know what I mean? Because I know what toughness. Yeah. Like, my dad would never have wanted me to. To go down that route, you know, and like. Because I don't think I would have been the same person.
- [74:30]
Patrick Bet-David
How many siblings? How many total?
- [74:31]
Eddie Hearn
One sister I have.
- [74:33]
Patrick Bet-David
Did he treat her the same as you?
- [74:34]
Eddie Hearn
Not really. He. He defines me as his project. I was like, thanks, dad. You know, it's really, really nice of you.
- [74:42]
Patrick Bet-David
And he's a project manager. My project is name. You know, we can see what's. What we can do with him.
- [74:45]
Eddie Hearn
Y. Like, he always wanted to build me as the guy to take the business over. Whereas I think especially the older generation, they are a bit different with their daughters, you know, like he says, yeah, I don't have a son. So he's like, that's a shame, you know, you got no one to take over the business. He's like, well, my daughters could do it. Oh, really? All right, okay.
- [75:04]
Patrick Bet-David
You know, so he's 76. Did he. Did he grow up in a rough neighborhood coming up?
- [75:12]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, pretty rough, yeah. East London, like, you know, his dad was a bus driver. His mom cleaned houses for.
- [75:18]
Patrick Bet-David
Was he around with the craze and all that stuff?
- [75:21]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, knew, yeah, knew about those guys. I mean, he used to put fruit machines and gambling machines in nightclubs that they ran and stuff like that.
- [75:29]
Patrick Bet-David
As you see, you know, sometimes like, you. You wonder, you know, in New York, the crime where New York's at right now. And don't get me wrong, the mob did what the mob did. But, you know, if the. There was an element of you didn't screw around and these guys would show up and they took care of their own. But if you cross the line, did anything to their community and their kids, they were not good people to me. Messing around with. Right. So sometimes you wonder like the. The level of safety and how they're. By the way, which is more crosses your mind. You and your wife are in bed, you're sitting there talking to each other late at night, 11 o'clock, and you're like, babe, do we leave the States or do I run for office?
- [76:09]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, I wouldn't have that conversation. But I think it's more like you.
- [76:12]
Patrick Bet-David
Said you wouldn't have that.
- [76:13]
Eddie Hearn
I just like, my thing is with my children, I just want them to have a passion for something, you know, and I knew that. I know that if I turn around to my kids now and said, do you want to go and live in Dubai or do you want to go? You know. No, I've got, you know, I've got my friends at school, like, you know, so. But sometimes you've got to make a decision for their future. And I think it's not just really my kids necessarily. I just look at the country and I look at the kids, you know, and that's why we love doing work in the community with local boxing clubs. Because when I see the kids doing normal things, working hard, listening, you know, sometimes being told off doing their work, that's what's missing in society today. I think we've got a major problem, like, that's worldwide. But I'm, you know, speaking about my country specifically.
- [77:01]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, I'm just wondering, like, what's going to happen there. I think, you know, what. What is needed for that to change, you know, I had a guy from Poland, Dominic Tarzinski. I don't know if you know who he is. He's part of the Parliament. Two times with Poland. Now he's part of the EU Parliament. Tough guy. We had him on the podcast the election night. He was the star of the night. When they say star was born, this guy turned on the camera. He lights up. He lights up when the camera's on and he says, do you know Poland's got the lowest percentage of rape, lowest percentage of unemployment, lowest. Their borders, if you cross the border, they have the right to kill you, no questions asked. If you do anything at the border, it's not. Well, let me find out. No, they have the lowest percentage of the Muslim population. They have certain things that he brags about. He says, we will not have one here. Not one here. You can go elsewhere. Very much controversial guy, right? And he sits there and he talks about what's going on with uk. Some of the places. He said, look at these guys. They're ruining a great country because they just want to make sure everybody's happy. Be. So I don't know what's going to happen to uk. UK is uk. When you think about, like the financial capital, the world for the longest time before was New York. You guys had it and you had it for a long time. So I don't know. I'm. I'm. I'm wondering if we're going to get announcement today that you run it for office. You're going to do something about that? We're going to, we're going to bring it so let's, let's transition to next story. This is a question I was going to ask you earlier when you talked about Bob Aram is not on Twitter. So out of all the social media platforms, like I'm, I'm with Dana and Dana says, pat, let me tell you about Super Slap. Watch this. I watched a clip, 40 million views. I'm like, you gotta be careful. I gotta buy this. And he's like, he says, you gotta come to a Super Slap event. So I go to the event and I'm seeing a guy passes out, gets slapped in the face, is on the ground, audience is going crazy. My wife is sitting, babe, what is this? I said, babe, whatever this is, that guy right there is promoting it. This is going to make a lot of money because that guy's behind it. And you know, he went to TikTok, he went to Instagram. Right. Out of all the social media platforms today, if you were to rank them, which one is positively influencing boxing the most?
- [79:14]
Eddie Hearn
Great question. Twitter.
- [79:18]
Patrick Bet-David
Really?
- [79:18]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. I mean, I would say Twitter is without question the most toxic environment I've ever seen in my life. I think this is good for boxing. I mean, yeah, basically. And that's exactly that.
- [79:29]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [79:29]
Eddie Hearn
There are more opinions, there are more controversy. I mean, you read, really, you. If I read Twitter in a day, 90 of what I read is about boxing is complete rubbish, right? But it's like full of boxing geniuses and like that ecosystem of algorithms are just flying out everywhere. Do you know what I mean? Like, someone can make anything up. Next thing, 100,000 retweets, you know, or a hundred thousand views, 400 retweets. This, that, like Instagram for me, good for building a fighter's profile, but difficult to actually build the narrative of conversation in the same way. Tick tock. Yeah, you know, there's, there's, there is investment going in behind YouTube has been a very powerful platform for us to spin the narrative of mainly shoulder programming and content to build around the event. But Twitter's the cesspit. Twitter's the, you know, the, the cesspit of knowledge or supposed knowledge of fans. And that's why, like a lot of our guys, you know, a lot of the guys that I've come off Twitter, I've deleted the app. I'm like, I'd love to, but it's just too important to us.
- [80:36]
Patrick Bet-David
That's what I'm saying. I wonder in the fighting world which one it is, you know? You know, you know, on YouTube, which one of the sports channels has the most Subscribers, you know, it's wrestling. And Rob, if you can pull up YouTube, go to YouTube, put WWE. I'm trying to see how many subscribers. Look at that, 105 million. Go to their videos. Robin. And go to the most viewed. Just go to videos on the software popular. How many views is it?
- [81:03]
Eddie Hearn
Holy shit.
- [81:06]
Patrick Bet-David
And then, and then go to ufc. Rob, let's see what UFC says. So WWWE is at 100 plus. UFC is. I think they're up there. I don't know what their number is. Wow, look at that. 19.1 million. 19.1 comparison on what, What a huge amount. Still huge. But does boxing have type in boxing?
- [81:27]
Eddie Hearn
See if boxing, I mean, I think ours would sit about 600, 700,000, you know, matching boxing, YouTube. And we're, we're one of the biggest. Top rank probably have a million, million and a half. The zone are very good on social.
- [81:38]
Patrick Bet-David
How many is that, Rob? 4.46 million.
- [81:42]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, that's, that's a lot for boxing.
- [81:43]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, I guess it's, it's easier if it's all centralized. Going through one thing which is UFC and WWE Versus it's all, you know, fragmented all over the place.
- [81:54]
Eddie Hearn
But also, you know, the key to driving those huge numbers is those powerful moments. So, you know, that's why the slap does very well in terms of its viral numbers, because it's incredibly shocking. Do you know what I mean? So when you see someone who, you know, slaps someone in the face, their eyes roll in the back of their head and they're unconscious, falling backwards. People are like, share, Share.
- [82:16]
Patrick Bet-David
No, I mean, that's the thing. When I see it, I'm like, dude, holy. Your first time I saw it, I'm like, what is this? Is this. Actually I saw something the other day. They said this could be the next thing. It's four guys hanging off a pull up bar. Have you seen this one or no.
- [82:30]
Eddie Hearn
You gotta hang on.
- [82:31]
Patrick Bet-David
It's four guys, they're hanging off a pull up bar, okay? And it says, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. They're kicking each other in the face to see who falls. Whoever's last, by the way, not gonna lie to you, it was so entertaining watching this. It was so entertaining watching this. And I'm sitting there saying, you know what, this could actually be something. Because if the slapping thing goes, you know, who knows what will take up. Let me get into a couple other questions here and then we'll wrap up. Ryan Garcia, I had him on a couple times. He had his fight with Devin Haney. Good fight. When you watch the fight, were you saying, something's going on, he looks different, or were you like, hey, he won the fight. What was your reaction?
- [83:13]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, I was representing Devin that night. I've never seen, like, I've known Ryan for a few years and his behavior going into that fight just changed so drastically to the point of, you know, eight weeks out from the fight, the first press conference, I was talking to him and I just turned to our guys, I went, what has happened to Ryan? Like, he was just flying, you know, like, and the whole build up, everything, like his behavior was just like, in my opinion, it was all the signs of someone who was having really a breakdown, to be quite honest with you, in some respect or some form. You know, fast forward to the fight. The Wayne comes, you know, he's overweight, he doesn't make the, the official wake, the contracted weight, had to cut a new deal for the fight. Then the fight happens. He won the fight. I mean, great performance. Looked much bigger than Devin in the ring. Devin was very brave, but lost on points. And then a couple of weeks later, he fails his test from Varda. You know, the, the drugs test on the Friday and the Saturday of the fight. Then all of a sudden everything changes. You know, the guy has won, but he has performance enhancing drugs in his system during the fight. That's unequivocal, that's, you know, impossible to say. He didn't. Then it sort of skirts back to how did it get there? Right. Every fighter would say, no, I didn't do anything. It's a tainted supplement. It's this which can happen as well. Normally when a fighter fails a drug test so close to the fight, because these guys were tested eight weeks, like all the time, and he hadn't failed a test. Normally it would be something that someone's given him or he's taken to try and cut the weight for the weigh in. That, that's my probably prediction. Rather than him actually cheating intentionally for the fight. I think probably someone gave him something to cut weight and make weight because he couldn't make weight, I don't know. But what we do know is when he fought Devin Haney, he had performance enhancing drugs in his system.
- [85:20]
Patrick Bet-David
When you say that to the average person, and let me tell you how that comes across to me, and, and that's what I'm wondering. It's interesting you're saying this. The average fan who doesn't follow this, not the 5% of the community, that's the super fan, the 95%, the average fan Sits there and says, oh, this guy was on steroids and growth hormone. But no, that's not the case. Based on what you're saying. This could have been the fact. If you guys are eight weeks out of your constantly testing, the idea of getting on growth hormone or steroids, it's not going to do anything for you. If it's a week out or two weeks out, that's really a 12 week build out. And it's something like that, right?
- [85:54]
Eddie Hearn
No one really knows. Some will say, well, it's a masking, you know, agent for something that he was doing. The reality is no one will ever know. Hit Ryan's argument with, oh, it was such a small amount that it had no physical benefit. And it's like, maybe that's the case, but it was still in your system.
- [86:12]
Patrick Bet-David
So then let me ask you, would there be a, like the Houston Astros? I don't know if you follow baseball. Houston Astros won the World Series the couple years, five years ago, whatever the timeline was. And then stories comes out. You know, when the guy hits the home run, it's like, guys don't do anything because he's got stuff in his chest. It's like he didn't want to show wiring. They're like, these guys cheated. They got caught cheating. And Rob Manfred let them keep the. What do you call it? The World Series Championship. Aaron Judge was pissed. The Dodger, a bunch of people were pissed because they cheated. But then they came back and they won. What year? 2017. Broken. So they won in 2017. 2018, whatever. What year did they win the world? 2017. Everyone's talking shit about these guys, right? Then they come back and a few years later, Rob, if he can pull up like when the next time the Houston Astros won the World Series. I think they won two years ago, if I'm not mistaken, 2022. So these guys said, couple guys left, but the main guys were there. One of the main guys was there and they win again five years later. And it was the middle finger to everybody in baseball to say to all of you guys who said we cheated, f you, we'll still beat you and you can check whatever you want, Right. Everybody's like, hey, you can't say about these guys now, they won. So in this case, let's say that is the case. Okay, what if you guys go back and negotiate and double down on the. You know, I think the world would.
- [87:42]
Eddie Hearn
Want to rematch is huge.
- [87:44]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [87:44]
Eddie Hearn
And I think it will happen. I mean, there's a lot of bad blood, you know, Devin and his father feels like, you know, yeah, you come in overweight, you had that in your system, you know, you, you know, and it. That's a dangerous sport. Like if Ryan was intentionally cheating, like now you have this case that's running out.
- [88:02]
Patrick Bet-David
Have you seen criminal? Yeah, yeah.
- [88:04]
Eddie Hearn
Which is actually really interesting. Like, you know, contractually, obviously he's breached, but, you know, he physically. The argument, I guess, of the case is that he's physically harmed the opponent by breaching the agreement.
- [88:17]
Patrick Bet-David
Has he gotten paid already or not yet? The fight has gone.
- [88:20]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, they got paid.
- [88:21]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, they got paid.
- [88:21]
Eddie Hearn
But now he's suing Ryan Garcia. And it's actually quite an interesting case case because it may really diffuse. I think the pro. One of the problems is Ryan got a year's ban, right? So actually time you finished the fight, had your holiday, like, you probably wouldn't fight for six months anyway. So it's really a six month ban. So how are you going to really, you know, make a fighter fearful of the consequences of testing positive?
- [88:48]
Patrick Bet-David
How do you do that?
- [88:49]
Eddie Hearn
Well, maybe this case, you know, a lot of people have said that in the past about you have a case against the fighter.
- [88:56]
Patrick Bet-David
Has it ever happened? Do you remember that one guy that, you know, at the end of the fight, the dad's like, dude, this, this is not normal. And the dad comes and grabs the gloves and says, hey, yeah, Margarita.
- [89:04]
Eddie Hearn
They had low stack gloves. Yeah, gloves with like concrete on the wraps.
- [89:08]
Patrick Bet-David
You're right. What happened to that guy that don't.
- [89:10]
Eddie Hearn
Think there was anything, you know, there was no criminal case.
- [89:13]
Patrick Bet-David
He didn't go to jail, banned.
- [89:14]
Eddie Hearn
No, he got banned.
- [89:14]
Patrick Bet-David
Permanently banned.
- [89:15]
Eddie Hearn
I believe so, yeah.
- [89:16]
Patrick Bet-David
Permanently bad.
- [89:17]
Eddie Hearn
A year to. I don't know, nothing to do that.
- [89:20]
Patrick Bet-David
That's nothing. So, okay, so yeah, I'm trying to see the. The lawsuit. So they have Haney and, and Haney on Ryan Gorse. I saw this. I'm just wondering what. What the lawsuit was and how much it is. I don't know why? I think 30 million, but maybe battery, fraud and breach. Okay, there it is. For battery, fraud and breach of contract. Have they announced what the amount is or is it just a general. Okay, so it's not. The star was suspended for one year on final reports of $1.2 million in the fight. And Haney would never have fought a boxer who was positive on PED. Got it. Haney was entitled to 47% of the event's profits. So they're coming back for that. Okay, now this is at the end of the fight, Rob if you want to play the clip. And that's Ryan Garcia's dad, by the way. This was one of the most entertaining. I, I actually really enjoyed watching this fight. And then afterwards we see this. I'm sure you obviously know what this is gonna play this clip. Rob. It's great for tv.
- [90:22]
Eddie Hearn
He was amazing. Well done. Oh, really? You, you piece of. And that's what you get.
- [90:38]
Patrick Bet-David
Devin Haney. You now who you got?
- [90:42]
Eddie Hearn
Who do you got?
- [90:47]
Patrick Bet-David
Pimp.
- [90:47]
Eddie Hearn
You know, he's good. Jaron Ennis is good. It's a good performance. Listen, when you win, I know I give you all the respect in the world.
- [90:59]
Patrick Bet-David
Okay. Give Ryan the respect.
- [91:01]
Eddie Hearn
I just told him.
- [91:01]
Patrick Bet-David
You did.
- [91:02]
Eddie Hearn
Absolutely. Thank you.
- [91:03]
Patrick Bet-David
Sorry.
- [91:04]
Eddie Hearn
Don't worry, I was start. I accept your apology. Thank you.
- [91:08]
Patrick Bet-David
I accept your apology.
- [91:12]
Eddie Hearn
That was the last line. Was the killer.
- [91:13]
Patrick Bet-David
You know, it took you half a second to respond back right off the bat too. But yeah, I mean, look, for me, obviously they got to do what they got to do with the contract. Some people like, well, he's doing that because they want to dodge the next fight. Some people are saying he's doing that to hold a guy accountable. Ryan Garcia, whatever it is, if that's the claim and you put up a challenge for him to get back to the weight that he needs to maybe double down on the way to do the testing on them. But if that fight happens, big fight. Yeah, it's going to be big fight.
- [91:43]
Eddie Hearn
It will happen, I believe.
- [91:44]
Patrick Bet-David
How soon do you think it'll happen?
- [91:45]
Eddie Hearn
I mean, look, he's going to be banned till what may.
- [91:47]
Patrick Bet-David
It's nothing.
- [91:48]
Eddie Hearn
So, you know, Devin needs to fight. Really. You know, I said to him the other day, you, you know, that was a tough defeat physically. You, you could really do with a, a comeback fight of some respect, confidence going through camp, you know, because that was a beating.
- [92:03]
Patrick Bet-David
You think he needs a fight before he goes with Ryan? I would advise it to fight somebody.
- [92:06]
Eddie Hearn
Before just because when you get beat like that, like it's a long time out of the ring. You're talking about over a year out of the ring anyway. And you know, Ryan's Ryan. I, I haven't said. I, I would guess Ryan. I haven't seen as much from him on social media lately, which is good news. But I think he's probably got a little bit of help and you know, I think hopefully he's on the right path now because he's a good kid, actually. He's got a good heart and then the build up will be wild. You know, I Mean, we talk about narrative.
- [92:37]
Patrick Bet-David
I mean, are you kidding me? Are you going to be behind.
- [92:40]
Eddie Hearn
Because Oscar De La Hoya, you know, me and him are like this.
- [92:43]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, but he came. He said something about you. He responded to you, I think, yesterday.
- [92:48]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, he was.
- [92:48]
Patrick Bet-David
What happened with you?
- [92:49]
Eddie Hearn
We want to do this 5v5, which is our five of our best against five of golden boys, best in Saudi Arabia. But he came out today and said, I want to fight Eddie on the card.
- [93:01]
Patrick Bet-David
He's so funny.
- [93:01]
Eddie Hearn
And I'm like, you know, and people say to me, you know, like, he beat the out you, don't you. I said, the guy was a pound for pound, great fighter. He said, well, you wouldn't do it, would you? I said, there's always enough. And he came out today. He's quite funny. He came out today on his social media. Oh, here we go. Look, I don't know if you want to play the clip of him. This is him appealing to his Excellency to do the fight in Saudi Arabia.
- [93:27]
Patrick Bet-David
I will fight Eddie for free as.
- [93:31]
Eddie Hearn
A gift to you.
- [93:32]
Patrick Bet-David
For free.
- [93:34]
Eddie Hearn
It'll be my pleasure.
- [93:36]
Patrick Bet-David
But look, I only need about two months of training.
- [93:40]
Eddie Hearn
It actually went on for a while after that, but I was like, you need two months of training to fight me?
- [93:46]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [93:47]
Eddie Hearn
So he's like. He's like, yeah. I said, look, I'm honored, right? But he said, I'll fight him for free. I said, I won't. I want eight figures, but I'll do it. And it'll break pay per view records. So it's up to you, your excellency. And they're like, are you joking? I'm like, but this is what I say about the delusion earlier.
- [94:05]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah.
- [94:06]
Eddie Hearn
So people are going to me, hey, you would. You wouldn't do that. I go, of course I wouldn't do that. And then I'm like, I would do that just because.
- [94:16]
Patrick Bet-David
Is there real animosity towards each other?
- [94:18]
Eddie Hearn
He hates me. Oh, my God, he hates me. Like, I don't. I see Oscar De La Hoya as this. I mean, like, one of my favorite fighters. He's just like a legend of the sport. But I put his nose out of joint so bad. I signed Canelo Alvarez when Canelo took him to court and he come to join me, and like, for years, he's just, you know, I have this ability to make people's blood pressure rise beyond all kinds of levels. That's the thing with Oscar, you know, and actually, I like Oscar. Like, we could do a lot of business together, but He's a guy that works off emotion rather than a clear mind to do good business. So when it.
- [94:57]
Patrick Bet-David
When it happened, what. What's your story from Canelo and his fallen out? Because, listen, at one of the fights, Canelo would not stop talking trash.
- [95:07]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, that was the high meat. They hate each other other bad. I mean, Oscar doesn't like me, but I don't think it's not like him and Canelo, like they cannot stand each other. Oscar says, I built you. You owe me everything. And Canelo says, I. I made your company. And then there's a lot of financial disputes and stuff like that. But, you know, Canelo's probably the coolest guy I've ever met, you know, and the coolest guy. Yeah, and one of the straightest guys I've ever met. Like 100, you know, I did about seven fights for him. And if. If the business is right for him, easy done. And if it's not, no problem, Eddie. I'll see you on the next one. Thank you. Thank you, Sal. See you on the next one. That's it. And as long as you always know where you stand, that's. That's all good. You know, he's a. He's a. He's a great guy.
- [95:54]
Patrick Bet-David
So you said the Excellency earlier. How much is he disrupting the game? You know, I don't know who said it that he's the biggest name right now. You know, I think ESPN may have called him the number one powerful man in boxing. Yeah, something like that. Influential powerful man in boxing. Why do you think that's the case?
- [96:13]
Eddie Hearn
Well, because they have, you know, obscene budgets and the opportunity to do whatever they want in the space, you know, Riyadh season, which is what he effectively runs. And that schedule of events, he's. It's been in operation for a year now. You know, you've seen Fury and Ganu. And ganu. Joshua Fury, Usyk Bivol better be of the 5v5 us against Frank Warren. A day of reckoning card. We did an event for him in Los Angeles which was incredible. We just did Joshua Dubois at Wembley. 96, 000 people. I mean, you know, and what I love about these people, I mean, firstly, talk about great guys. Like, he's one of the funniest people I've ever met. And the funniest, funniest he will take. I mean, if you read his whatsapps to me, all he does is like, take the. Take the Mick out. Take the piss out of me all the time. You know, we Have a fight or lose. You are Eddie, you need to retire, you know, like. But his energy to get things done, like, you know, the pace that they move. Yeah, you do a deal here now, done right, you go away, paper it, get it done next. Do you know what I mean? And once that's done, it's not, oh, three months down the line, we're still going, it's this and that, it's done, you know, and you sit in a room with him and he puts a card together and you're just like, wow.
- [97:26]
Patrick Bet-David
What part of it is what?
- [97:27]
Eddie Hearn
Just all the whole of the fights, obviously the cost of, of the show that he's putting together, but he knows he's boxing and he's a very passionate man about the sport and very clever. This isn't just a guy who's come in, who's got a big budget and doesn't really know what he's doing.
- [97:39]
Patrick Bet-David
So how do you, when you say.
- [97:41]
Eddie Hearn
He'S clever, what clear vision for the sport. He understands it commercially, you know, I don't know if you've seen the, the promos that they put together. Guy Ritchie did the last one. I mean, it's like, it's like a mini Oscar winning film. The promotion, the way they're building the perception of the sport again, you know, into this huge event. It's been brilliant for the sport. And you know, you're always going to get people who moan and, oh, you know, why, why, why are there events in Saudi? Why not? There are events in Las Vegas. Like every part of the world bitches about it. Fighters or fans, sometimes people aren't involved.
- [98:15]
Patrick Bet-David
I know, but listen, you put up a fight, if, if it's a fight that the world wants to see, they don't give a. Where it's at. Put it, we'll come to it. Matter of fact, didn't you during COVID put some stuff like you put some fights in your backyard, didn't you do.
- [98:29]
Eddie Hearn
So we had, we had about eight fight shows booked. We pay for the venues, the flights, the hotels, everything. And then Covid hits and the government says, right, all live sports events canceled. I'm like, what? We've got all our dates with our broadcaster to be fulfilled, right? We've got no arenas you can go to. And actually this is our office, actually our head office. This is where. It's my old house. Where? Well, I lived there from the age of four.
- [99:00]
Patrick Bet-David
Is this the house that your dad bought for $200,000? I read somewhere? Thousand pounds, 200,000 pounds. It's like $20 million.
- [99:06]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. Yeah. So leading up there, there's some stairs, right. Just by the bottom windows. And I sat on those stairs during COVID and I was like, what the are we gonna do? And I looked at the lawn and I was like, we're gonna do it here. And they were like, what? And I said, I'm gonna create fight camp. And I said to my dad, I said, dad, we're gonna build fight camp in the garden. And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, we're gonna have an arena in the garden, and we're going to hide a hotel down the road, which is out of business. We're going to put the bubble in there. We're going to put testing in there. We're going to isolate everyone in the room, and once they've passed their tests, we're going to ferry them up to the hotel and fight here. And we ran this for four weeks.
- [99:55]
Patrick Bet-David
Right.
- [99:55]
Eddie Hearn
It was the most unbelievable thing you will ever see. It completely changed how many people would.
- [100:01]
Patrick Bet-David
Be there, by the way.
- [100:02]
Eddie Hearn
No one was allowed.
- [100:02]
Patrick Bet-David
It's just the fight.
- [100:03]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. Only the people in the bubble. The next year, it was so big, the event, fight camp. I did it again the next year, and I allowed 600 people a night into the garden. We sell tickets, the unique, private experience within the garden to watch fight camp live. But the reality was this is. Look, this is. This is. What?
- [100:27]
Patrick Bet-David
You're joking. This is. This is the backyard.
- [100:29]
Eddie Hearn
This is the ring walk for the backyard pyrotechnics. Right.
- [100:34]
Patrick Bet-David
And where. Where are you selling this fight?
- [100:36]
Eddie Hearn
All around the world.
- [100:37]
Patrick Bet-David
Pay per view.
- [100:38]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. All of it? No. All. Yeah, there was a couple of pay per view events within the format week period. But don't forget, you're going to the broadcast. You're saying. Right. You are iou. Four shows, five shows within our contract term. I can't deliver them, but I can now because I've built this arena in my garden. And we're going to do it from.
- [100:57]
Patrick Bet-David
How do they feel about it?
- [100:58]
Eddie Hearn
I loved it because there's no live sport. You know, all the other sports just closed down. They went. Well, we can't do anything at the moment till.
- [101:06]
Patrick Bet-David
Are you and Dana talking at that time or not at all?
- [101:08]
Eddie Hearn
A little bit. I think it probably got his attention a little bit.
- [101:11]
Patrick Bet-David
So you did it first?
- [101:12]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. Oh, I did this before the apex, so let me.
- [101:17]
Patrick Bet-David
And by the way, you didn't just do it anywhere. You didn't do this in Florida or Texas. You did this in Ukraine?
- [101:22]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [101:22]
Patrick Bet-David
How did they feel about it that you're doing this? Did they give you a hard time? Would they show up? Would security show up with uk the politics, I mean.
- [101:29]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, no, we followed the rules. So, you know, the rules were that you could do behind doors, closed events. Right. But no crowd. But you had to do testing. You had to put people in isolation till you got their test results. You had to keep them in a bubble.
- [101:45]
Patrick Bet-David
Would they sent to watch you? Were they kind of.
- [101:47]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, they got. The council would come down, make sure everything's in order. Masks are being.
- [101:51]
Patrick Bet-David
Did anybody try to get in your way or they were support if you did it the right way? They didn't bother.
- [101:55]
Eddie Hearn
I think there were a few neighbors around who were like, what is going on here?
- [101:58]
Patrick Bet-David
I'm assuming this is a high end community, the neighborhood.
- [102:00]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, but when. Yeah, so. So, but also I was saying to the. The area. Brentwood, right guys, you've got an international sports event taking place in Brentwood. You've never had anything in your life. The whole world is watching Brentwood right now. Stop moaning and just buy the pay per view.
- [102:17]
Patrick Bet-David
And how much you send spent on this, on the backyard, the whole thing just for the setup.
- [102:21]
Eddie Hearn
About £2 million.
- [102:23]
Patrick Bet-David
£2 million?
- [102:24]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [102:25]
Patrick Bet-David
So at the time, what would that be in US dollars?
- [102:27]
Eddie Hearn
$3 million.
- [102:28]
Patrick Bet-David
So you spent three. So is it. Is it. Was it rental or did you built this structure? You. So it's still there right now?
- [102:35]
Eddie Hearn
No, it's taken down.
- [102:36]
Patrick Bet-David
What did you put it.
- [102:37]
Eddie Hearn
What did you do with all the skin taken away? So you built. You. You know, you're hiring the trust. You're building the trust. There's probably some better pictures as well if you.
- [102:44]
Patrick Bet-David
No, you had. The other one was really clean, Rob. You had one that was really clean.
- [102:47]
Eddie Hearn
Put Fight Camp Mattram or Eddie Hearn.
- [102:57]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, I mean that's a. That's a big game. You got rigging, you got the.
- [103:01]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [103:04]
Patrick Bet-David
That'S sick.
- [103:05]
Eddie Hearn
But like you like the power. What that did for our business was that got the attention because Covid was a global issue. This got so look at that. This got so much exposure globally. And of course when people say it was in your back garden, like that was even. Because we after this eventually we went to an arena and we just hired an arena and did it behind closed doors. Could be in the middle, it could be anywhere. Right. But this was the first thing that we did.
- [103:33]
Patrick Bet-David
Is there people there, Rob? Do I see people?
- [103:35]
Eddie Hearn
This was. This was year two. Now you can now sold tickets, which I didn't like, because I got randoms in my garden drinking. We got. We had this, you know, we had pizza stands, taco stands, we got all the champagne bars. And I'm like, don't get me wrong, for a fight fan, it was like a once in a lifetime experience. But it was a bit weird for us because it was like, this is my. Actually my house and my head office.
- [103:57]
Patrick Bet-David
This is. This is. This is wild at a time like that to make sure while everybody else is scared.
- [104:02]
Eddie Hearn
But it was less. Yeah, well, it was a wild time that, you know, what. What is it? He said, you know, one of the rules that my dad said, I don't know, it's number six or seven, which was.
- [104:11]
Patrick Bet-David
You know which one?
- [104:12]
Eddie Hearn
I can't remember it, but there was definitely something that. Here we go. This is the build, right? This is the year two. So that's the hospitality tent at the back. We had DJs in there, all champagne bars.
- [104:26]
Patrick Bet-David
And this is beautiful. Where is this, by the way, Brent?
- [104:29]
Eddie Hearn
Brentwood in Essex. It's about. It's about 15 miles outside of London.
- [104:36]
Patrick Bet-David
Is this all in one? This is day three or day. Are you already.
- [104:40]
Eddie Hearn
So it takes about a week or so to build.
- [104:42]
Patrick Bet-David
Got it. So when it gets darker, rain.
- [104:45]
Eddie Hearn
And this is summer, by the way. Right. So then it starts raining and we're like thinking, what is going on here?
- [104:53]
Patrick Bet-David
Yeah, we just had.
- [104:54]
Eddie Hearn
We.
- [104:54]
Patrick Bet-David
We just had our thing that we did at. In our hangar and it was pouring. And then the moment people started showing up or like, there's a 75 chance it's raining, guess what happens? Stops raining. Yeah. And that's wild, man. So, Eddie, next, what's the next big thing if. If you were to say some big fights? By the way, do you watch UFC or no?
- [105:15]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
- [105:16]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you like, like it? Do you love it or you just kind of watch it?
- [105:18]
Eddie Hearn
A couple with. With Dana kindly got me. I. I think it's compelling. I think, you know, it's. I think it's just a tremendous product. I'm very jealous of the. Almost like the control they have over their talent, where it's like you sign a central contract and it's like, right, you are fighting him on November 30th. See you there. And your money's already there with us. It's an individual negotiation for every fight, and it's incredible. That's why the business is so, so good.
- [105:47]
Patrick Bet-David
Do you think because the way boxing is fragmented, it can't compete with the ufc?
- [105:50]
Eddie Hearn
The way I feel like, you know, Boxing already competes with the ufc. Like people, people talk about boxing's dead box. There's nothing like a big fight. Like in terms of the interest it generates, the numbers it can generate as well. Boxing is so historic globally. And you know, that's really the plan for us as a business. I mean, you know, I got to tell you one thing before, before we, we wrap up because the one thing that you haven't spoken about, you got to understand a sport and a business called darts. Darts. This is the biggest viewed Sport in the UK outside of Premier League football. We are selling 15, 20, 30000 tickets for people to watch darts. Please Google Luke Littler 9 data. This kid has come on the scene at 16 years of age and has become the hottest ticket in town. We just recently did the US event at Madison Square Garden in the summer. Sold out 4,000 in the the theater there. Darts is taking over America. It is the ultimate night out experience. You need to watch the video of Luke litter on YouTube. Wait till you see the crowd. Fancy dress.
- [107:01]
Patrick Bet-David
Are you talking about dart?
- [107:03]
Eddie Hearn
Darts? I'm telling you now, we're gonna. You're gonna play this conversation back. Loot lit. All right, watch this.
- [107:09]
Patrick Bet-David
Which one?
- [107:09]
Eddie Hearn
This top one. Sound. Need lots of sound. This kid's 16. I think Luke Little went on the practice board. Yes, practicing trouble.
- [107:21]
Patrick Bet-David
20S, apparently. Oh, they both were. Oh, they've changed the dartboard.
- [107:28]
Eddie Hearn
They've made the trouble bigger.
- [107:29]
Patrick Bet-David
Don't say that. People believe you, man.
- [107:31]
Eddie Hearn
You can't joke on TV. Oh no, this is amazing. 20,000 people at the O2. They were both on nines.
- [107:45]
Patrick Bet-David
I'm just saying. Can he, can he, can he? Sixteen years old, Luke let a 9D.
- [108:01]
Eddie Hearn
Finish in the final of the Premier League.
- [108:04]
Patrick Bet-David
Could dance.
- [108:05]
Eddie Hearn
He's even on the pro tour, he's even on the European tour and he's looking at his watch to say about time.
- [108:13]
Patrick Bet-David
How old is the other guy?
- [108:15]
Eddie Hearn
27.
- [108:16]
Patrick Bet-David
Is he somebody world champion?
- [108:17]
Eddie Hearn
The other guy.
- [108:18]
Patrick Bet-David
He's the world champion. The 16 year. Now, is it common for 16 year olds to be good in this game?
- [108:23]
Eddie Hearn
No, but already, Patrick, darts, it's a phenomenon. It's the greatest party in town. People are turning up in fancy dresses. You've got Power Rangers, you've got Smurfs, right? You've got Miss Universe. Like, look at, look at these pictures. Look at this.
- [108:40]
Patrick Bet-David
Who runs this, by the way?
- [108:41]
Eddie Hearn
We own the sport. We own the pdc, the professional darts corporations, the governing body of the sport.
- [108:46]
Patrick Bet-David
When you say we as who is we? You on the sport?
- [108:49]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah. I'm. This is about to take over America, this sport. And everyone says when I try to explain to people about darts to people, especially people who aren't from the uk, they go like, who's it? Darts, Right. It's like you could watch clips of this. Like, look at, look at it, look. Where's Wally? Peter Pan. Right. You got a chicken at the back there as well, right? This sport, it's its only competitor in terms of viewership in the UK is Premier League football.
- [109:22]
Patrick Bet-David
Now has this always been like that or. No, this is.
- [109:24]
Eddie Hearn
But lately, the last five years, just so to put it in comparison, darts is almost twice the size of our boxing business. What? Yeah.
- [109:33]
Patrick Bet-David
Like in revenue?
- [109:34]
Eddie Hearn
Yes. You're joking.
- [109:36]
Patrick Bet-David
In EBITDA.
- [109:37]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [109:41]
Patrick Bet-David
So how much that 16 year old.
- [109:43]
Eddie Hearn
Kid, how much does he make? Probably $5 million a year.
- [109:48]
Patrick Bet-David
And your EBITDA is still twice as much as your boxing.
- [109:50]
Eddie Hearn
Yeah.
- [109:51]
Patrick Bet-David
And your boxing is a good size.
- [109:52]
Eddie Hearn
Huge.
- [109:55]
Patrick Bet-David
See that's, that's the thing, the, the things we talked about with sales and promoting and you know, those types of things makes you realize at the end of the day, salespeople rule the world, man. You know how to sell if you know how to promote, the rest is history. Last question for you on the pops. When you decided to come back and work with Pops, did you guys have any rules of working together or.
- [110:19]
Eddie Hearn
No, not really, No. I mean we always, a lot of our key people in the business, we never really recruited at senior level or we didn't till we got to a certain size. Everybody came through to business. So Frank Smith, who's my CEO for boxing, he joined the company at 15. Matt Poulter, who runs the PDC, joined the company at 16.
- [110:37]
Patrick Bet-David
What do you mean 16 years old?
- [110:39]
Eddie Hearn
Years old.
- [110:40]
Patrick Bet-David
And how old is it? How old is he?
- [110:41]
Eddie Hearn
32.
- [110:41]
Patrick Bet-David
So the 15 year old's now the.
- [110:44]
Eddie Hearn
CEO of boxing at 32. Matt Poulter is the CEO of PDC. He's 40 years old. Emily Fraser runs Multi Sport. She joined at 17. So he loves to give people the opportunity to work through the business. And that's why I always say to people within a company, you will always get noticed. There are no, like, there are no barriers to entry in boxing. There is no barriers to growth for you within the business. And the, the show that we have coming out next year, the Great Showman is our Netflix documentary from the creators of Drive to Survive. Full Swing. All the big shows box to box and it's. I pitched them the boxing version of Drive to Survive. They came in they filmed the boxing, but they looked at the company and they went, no, no, we want to do it on the company, on you, on your dad, and all these different people that have come through from the ages of 15 or 16.
- [111:37]
Patrick Bet-David
What a great story, man. Let me tell you. I had no idea where this direction the conversation was going to go, but I know I was going to have a fun time, but I didn't know it was going to be this good. And I had a freaking blast talking to you. And maybe next time if your father is over here, I would love for us to do one talking together if he's ever in Florida. I'd love that.
- [111:59]
Eddie Hearn
You would love that.
- [112:00]
Patrick Bet-David
Anyways, brother, this was great. Appreciate you for coming out.
- [112:02]
Eddie Hearn
Cheers.
- [112:02]
Patrick Bet-David
Take care. You're going to think I'm crazy when I tell you this, but the last 13 and a half years, I've been working on my first fiction book to write, ever fiction book to write. And while I finished this book a year ago, I got the strangest phone call about one of the characters in a book where the guy wanted to meet with me and he read the book and afterwards is like, wait a minute, am I the villain in the book? This is a story about a character named Asher, who is half Armenian, half Assyrian, whose father was involved in the Iranian revolution, linked to Savag working with the Shah, that they escape and he gets recruited to a secret society. When you go to the secret society, it's been around for a couple thousand years. They've developed some of the craziest leaders of all time and they test you. There's unique tests that they have at the society where they test to see your emotional, mental toughness. One of the tests that they have is very rigorous. It's purely mental. Of course, there's a physical one, but one is mental and emotional. If you're Armenian, if you're Syrian, if you're Persian, this is a book you're going to be reading and saying, holy moly. This the kind of stuff you talk about in here? Yes. If you're somebody that's fascinated by history, this is a book for you characters. There's a technology that this society, secret society, builds where you go into a vault. I won't spoil it for you. When you go down, they have a technology where you get to sit down and watch and have a three, four hour conversation with Tupac. You can set up a debate between Karl Marx and Ayn Rand. Karl Marx is in the book who wrote Communist Manifesto. Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, is in the book Marilyn Monroe explains the concept of seduction and sex in the book. When you read the book, it's about development of the next leaders in the world and how they do it and how they've been doing it for many years. And it's also about how to prevent the end of civilization and how this organization goes about doing it. So I've never written a parenting book before, but if I ever wrote a parenting book, this is the closest thing to it because it's all mindset, a lot of crazy stories. Again, 13 and a half years. Trust me, I told myself I will not publish this book until I sell my insurance company. And I'm fully disconnected from it where it's no longer My responsibility 100%. When you read this, if you're a crate, if you're a creative person, if you like fiction books, if you enjoyed Atlas Shrugged or if you enjoy Divergent, if you like books like that, I think you're going to enjoy reading this book. It's the creative side business books is very easy. Here's how you do it. Here's how this, how it works. This is very creative. If you haven't placed your order yet, now you can order it on Simon and Schuster, Amazon. I'm going to put the link up below somewhere here, maybe even in my profile. Go order the book and read it. I sincerely, I've never written a book where I can't wait to read your reviews to see what you think about this book. So I'm going on this wild journey and we have some plans with this book here. If you support the things that I work on, I would appreciate you going and reading the book. Order the book on Amazon and then post a review.