Frank Warren has given his thoughts on rival promoter Eddie Hearn in this week, and actually came dangerously close to giving Hearn a compliment.
Warren’s Queensberry Promotions and Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing have been the two top dogs in British boxing for well over a decade at this stage, and the two foes and haven taken numerous public pop shots at each other during that period.
In an interview with talkSPORT, however, Warren gave the Matchroom boss props for the job he had done for Anthony Joshua and actually described him as a good promoter – of himself.
“He’s a very, very good promoter of Eddie Hearn. That’s what he is, and he’s done it very well.”
“At times, he thinks he’s more important than the fights are, and more important than boxing is. I’ve noticed in the last few months he’s lost a few fighters, but that happens in boxing.”
“He’s done extremely well. He was in the right place at the right time with Anthony Joshua when he won the gold medal at the Olympics. Between him and Sky, they done a fantastic job marketing ‘AJ.’ ”
“He’s done well for himself, and Matchroom have made a fortune from being involved with DAZN.”
Hearn once had Joshua as arguably the biggest star in the sport a few years ago, when he was selling out the largest football stadiums in Britain on a regular basis.
Those days seem gone for now, however, with the former unified world heavyweight champion slow to sell out the O2 Arena in his comeback fight against Jermaine Franklin on Saturday night.