Transcript of "Hard Work Beats Talent" - Eddie Hearn Talks Pay, Corruption, And Legacy In Boxing | PBD Podcast. | Ep. 506

The world has gone a little bit soft. Let's be honest, you don't get given anything for free.

Do you see yourself as a better promoter than any of these guys, minus Don?

I don't like the way Don King does business.

By the way, 1.6 million pay-per-view, $80 million in revenue. We fight between those two.

Yeah, I would say that's 100% not true. But he came out today and said, I want to fight Eddie. I will fight Eddie for free. Oscar De La Hoya, me and him are like this. What happened with you guys? You have to walk away and go, I don't need to do this anymore.

You just presented yourself as extremely confident that not just you're great.

Me and Jake, we've had a big defamation case against him at the moment. But you call me average after one minute.

After one minute of my first professional fight.

No, but you're still average. I'm being honest, he's very average.

Is this a million dollar bet you guys made?

Maybe we can talk about a million, but we'll have a chat. Let's do a million. I don't want to see Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson. Example of a fighter that's been misrepresented and abused is Mike Tyson.

Biggest losing fight for you business-wise.

We sold out, but the pay-per-view flopped. You lost money on that? No. Probably my best example of that is Canelo Ávarez. Just don't ever, ever make decisions based off of emotion again. You know, like beat the shit out. You don't miss. If the guy was a pound-for-pound great fighter.

You think you're on a different level. Different level. What do you think he's in pursuit of?

Why would you plan on me?

I feel I'm so close. I could take sweet victory. I know this life meant for me.

Why would you plan on me? Goliath when we got Bet David. Value payment, giving values contagious. This world of entrepreneurs, we get no value to hate us.

How they run, homie.

Look what I become.

I'm the one. 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 Joshua, Canelo Alvarez, Triple G. I can give you a bunch of names. 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 shit and Entertaining, funny. It's the one and only Eddie Hearn. It's great to have you here.

Thank you. Firstly, you've got your own rap theme tune. I'm straight away getting on the phone to my guys. I want one of those.

We got to get it for you. Yeah, I want one. No, we got to get it for you, Especially now the fact that you're considering changing your career into politics, you need one. You need to get into that. But I want to start off with this. When I was looking into the story, what I know you as is the promoter. Then when you get into it, you're like, Let me A little bit more, you study your pops, and there's a couple of 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? I'm going to 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. 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 life's greatest mysteries. How influential was he in shaping your mindset, getting that competitive edge that you have today?

Everything. I'm I mean, I'm 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. He calls me Silver Spoon. This is this joke between us, and I always tell him that I turned it gold. We always joke I'm not sure 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. The world has gone a little bit soft, let's be honest. And a couple of those points in that top 10 were very consistent with my childhood, which is work, work, work, work, work. 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 or losing is acceptable.

The only reason you play, the only reason you're in business is to win. I'm not saying necessarily this is for everyone. This is just a way that I was brought up. So he always put a lot of pressure on me to perform and to succeed. The thing is for me growing up was I grew up around boxing since I was seven 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 my dad is. We got Naseem Ahmed, we got Lenox 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. I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be the successful businessman. I wanted to be a winner. I grew up around sports. Sport molded my personalities. All of 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. I never I wanted to work for my dad because everyone said to me, Oh, you're only going to go and work for your dad. 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 I take the business very personally. 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 at work by any of my competitors.

So let me ask you this. So you went away from working with them, and then you went back to want to work with them?

I never worked with him. When I left college, I just said, So I went out, I wrote to all the big sports marketing companies, IMG, Advantage International, Octagon. And I said, I wanted to be a sports agent. I wanted to represent athletes because I was a failed athlete. I was a good athlete, but never good enough to play cricket at a very high level and a few other sports. But I was never good enough to go professional. So for me, that was the next best thing.

By the way, the audience needs to know this. I'm 6'4, he's 6'5. So you're a big guy in boxing. I know you represent Josh. He's 6'8, he's a big dude. But promoters, you don't find them 6'5.

No, that's one of the first things that people say to me is my size. But I wrote off to all these major sports agencies and went for quite a few interviews. And one company sat me down, looked at my CV, said, Can I ask you a question? Are you in any relation to Barry Hearn? And I said, Yes, it's my dad. He said, What are you doing here? I said, I don't want to work for him. 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.How did you do?Yeah, good. I built a very successful department within the agency. This is something that resonates with me now. My heart was in the business, but my My goal was in the family business. I looked at what my dad went through, and it took him many years, by the way, to be successful, and it took us 40 years to be at the level that we're at now as a business. I just felt like if I'm bleeding, sweat and tears, I should be doing it.

When did you go back to him? When did you go back and say, Let's run together?

In my mid to late 20s. What year would that be? I'm 45 now, so you're talking about about 20 years ago.

Is this after the heart attack or is this pre- Yeah, he's had a few, actually.

This was after his heart attack.

I'm talking about the one that he almost lost everything, bankruptcy. I think it's '02 when this happened?

Yeah, that was a period of various different things going wrong. Obviously, a terrible economic time in the UK as well. But for many years, his business was up, down. He's very different to me in the respect of... He's a chance taker. But sometimes when you have nothing, it It's easier to take chances.

I want to show a clip because the audience has to know how your dad is, Rob. 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.

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 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 that inner strength that takes and past ordinary people if they want to be special. What were the most important characteristics that you would have demonstrated or nurtured in him that gave him that drive? I think it's just lessons. I mean, everything in our house is competitive. I play table tennis with my grandchildren on a Sunday. I don't let them 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. We'd play cricket. I wouldn't hold back. I'd both flat out to him, no matter what age he was.

You want to be in this game? We'll find out. I had famously took him down to the gym and we had what was supposed to be a proper three-round fire. He dropped me twice in the second round. We never had to say it. Do you remember that? Yeah, that was in the paper in the UK. People, they had a real mixed response. It's quite unusual, but actually, when you think about it, it's not. I was quite flash as a kid, 14, 15, 16, because of how I grew up. I boxed a little bit as an amateur. I had 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 the 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.He's.

A street guy.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 6'1, already quite a size.How big is he?He's about the same, 6'1. And he said, Look, I think we should bring It's been a long time. I've been waiting for it forth a couple of years. So I was like, all right, look, I don't mind. 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. Yeah. And the bell went and I just saw him come out, and he 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 him in around the side of my head. And I thought, he ain't playing. Do you know what I mean? And I'm taking him, and after, because he wasn't as fit. And then I think it was a second round. It was 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 looking at him on the floor. And it's like, the guys are counting the count. He gets up at eight. And then I walked him down, backed him up and done him. And he turned over, 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. Say that my son beat me up. He's like, oh, he's proper. I totally get it. I get that. But we did an interview with Piers Morgan recently, and he was talking about it, and he was like, look, I got to be honest, this is not really normal. He's like, what's the matter with you?

Of course, it's not normal.Piers is saying it's not normal.Yeah..

And my dad's saying, what are you talking about? Of course, it's normal. This would be very quite frowned upon. And he said, That was his way. And like he said about the table 10, it's like, literally, against my daughter, who is 15, he's diving. He beat her He won 19 the other week. It was so close. And he was sweating, diving around. And when he won, yes, like running around the celebrations. And she's looking at him going, Grandad, are you? He's like, You're so close. I reckon a couple more weeks and you're going to get me. It's not for everyone, but that's what built me.

So a couple of 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. By the way, both of you guys are Geminis. Correct. You're eighth, he's 19th, June 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, I don't let him beat me in nothing. And when he loses, it is not a pretty side when he loses. When you lost, were you upset?

Yeah, always. I was, yeah, I sulked. I hate losing. I hate it. And as you become a little bit older and a bit more successful, things change a little bit. But especially as a kid playing sports, bad, badBad loser.

You were? Yeah.

And that's okay. I always say to my fighters, when AJ loses or anything like that, give him a day or two, and I want to sit down and say, Are you okay? And they're like, 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 it's got really fucking hurt.

Bad. It's got to or it's going to?

It's got to.

It's If it doesn't hurt, how do you get back in to your train?

That's when it's time to maybe look at your future. If it doesn't eat you up, if you don't 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.

You ever had one when you sat across one and you're like, This guy's done?

Yeah, at times where even after the fight, you go back to the hotel and you can just see a fight. One of my best friends in the sport, guy called Darren Barker, who's my first He was a 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. And then the next fight, he took a big payday against Felix Sturm in Germany. He had 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 I think his mom bought him a beer. And I just looked at him, sit back and go, and he just took a sip of his beer. I looked at him and I went, You're done, aren't you? And he went, yeah.

But have you ever had it where they thought they're continuing? But you know, know this guy's done, where you got to tell them to their face.

Yeah, that's the hardest thing. A fighter would always want to fight. I mean, so easy to say just one more. But in the fight game, just one more can be devastating in many ways. 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. He went on a run of four wins, and everyone's like, He's back. He's better than ever. Then he loses for the World Heavyweight title. He should retire. He's done. That moment, that's when you really got to think, you got to see the desire. But boxing is a little bit different. You got to be physically 100 %. If you start fading, if you start taking too many shots, if you're not 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 spa 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 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 that void has got to be filled with something that you have a passion for. Maybe that's been a trainer, maybe that's staying in the game.

Is there a way to size them up? For example, in a football, NFL, there was this guy, what was a guy, a 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. In baseball, this guy got paid. Nothing happens after. It's like, What happened to you, right? When these guys all of a sudden Some guys said, Conor McGregor's best fight was 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 mentality, not poor mentality, but you're like, Keep that hunger. Do you They shaped their mindset. 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 Monique 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 next day. 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. You have to know I'm still going 80 hours a week. We're having this conversation, and I said, Family is going to call you. Everyone's going to want money. Everyone's going to tell you this. 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. My wife, till today, five days a week, she's at the office. Every 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 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 one when he sees the money in the bank again?

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 When the legacy and the money hit. Probably my best example of that is Canelo Ávarez. There's a guy who's got hundreds of millions, used to sell ice pops on the street of Guadalajara, came from absolutely nothing and now is making him $40, $50 million a fight. He doesn't even need to fight anymore. He trains, and Ajay, but he trains with the same hunger that he had when he was fighting a four-round fight at 17 years of age.

What do you think he's in pursuit What's he in a pursuit of?

I just think they're winners. I just think they're winners. I just think the ones, we all know. The keyword, 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 Ávarez is five a time. That's all. And eventually, it'll catch up with him. But how do you, especially boxing, boxing is such a tough sport. Today, I was up at Delray Beach. I was watching our 140-pound, light, well-to-weight world champion, Liam Sparrow, spa 10 rounds. No money in the spa, just the preparation. All-out war. You know what I mean? This wasn't someone who was 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 300 or 400 million, you got your properties, everything, and you go, I want those hard stars. Give me those hard ones. 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. And that's where you've got to keep that relationship, because when that hunger goes, you got to get them out.

Would you put Mayweather in that same league as Canelo? Mayweather just love money. Mayweather loves money. So you're saying Canelo is not about- 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, he had a passion for the sport. Passion is key to everything. Now, you talk about your wife going into the office. There's a reason for that. She loves to do it. It's not because I'm sure there's an obligation, and it's a team, and all that stuff. But there's a drive, and there's a passion, and there's a fire. Otherwise, It's 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, you keep going, but not with the same intensity, not with the same passion.

Yeah, fascinating. Going back 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. 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 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? Well, because I said I didn't know. But you called me average after one minute. You are average.

But you called me after one minute of my first professional fight?

No, but you're still average. You're not. That's not true.

I just beat a five-time World Championship.

You're being a UFC. You don't even know. You don't know my ability, though. That's the problem. 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 is very complementary to you. Are you trying to get under his skin at the time? Is it 50/50 trying to get under his skin? Yeah, probably a little bit. In that arena, one, it's about entertainment. Two, I'm being honest, he's very average as a fighter, as a professional. But what I was trying to explain to him was, as a professional fighter, someone that's dedicated their life to the sport. Most people from the ages of seven or eight, you started boxing at 24. You are average in that field. That's an unbelievable achievement. Do you know what I mean? I'm not average at boxing. I'm terrible. So you're so much better than me and so many other fighters who have dedicated their life to the sport. And then after a while, it's just about fucking with him a little bit. Me and Jake, we've had a big defamation case against him at the moment, and This week, my fighter, Katie Taylor, greatest female fighter of all time, is fighting his fighter, Amanda Serrano, on that undercard.

Is this a million dollar bet you guys made, or you guys did end up making it a bet?

No, that was before. I won the fight, but he didn't apparently make the I get them, whatever. But we won the first fight. This is the rematch this Friday, and it's on the undercard of the Jake Paul-This one in Dallas. Correct, which is a bit awkward because he doesn't really want me there. 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 hold her back.

Now, can he say you can't come or no, you can go to-Contractually, not really.

I mean, they've not been overly helpful with access from me. Got it. I'm exclusive to DAZN, so is Katie Taylor. I had to tell DAZN, You can't not let her take this opportunity. This is on Netflix. But part of the agreement, gentleman's agreement, was that they wouldn't want me doing it anyway, but I won't be pushing the show on their behalf. And they don't like the fact that I've been critical about the fight. But it's just I'm honest. I'm not going to brown nose anyone. I'm going to give you it straight, and I don't like it. I'm a boxing purist. Boxing is a massive part of my life, and I don't I don't want to see a 58-year-old Mike Tyson fight him. It's dangerous. And people talk about, Oh, there could be some. Maybe there's an agreement between them that this will happen, that will happen. Now, you got 14-ounce gloves, two-minute rounds. I don't know. I don't want to see Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson at 58, but many will, and I get it.

When Tyson fired Roy Jones, who'd you think was going to take it? Would you have an opinion on it?

To be honest with you, Roy Jones is absolutely shot to pieces, and he's been fighting for way too long. Everybody in boxing knows that guy. So when they both get in the ring... But how long ago was that? Four years ago?

But I I couldn't believe that he was standing up. I couldn't believe he... By the way, 1.6 million pay-per-view, $80 million in revenue will fight between those two.

No. Wow.

That's what it says right there on the bottom.

That's his say.

With three Ws in the judge as It's called The Fight Sold Over One Point. Can you go to the link to see who wrote it? You're saying that's not true?

I would say that's 100% not true. Really? A lot of the time, that could be a global number, that could be a replay number. A lot of the time, every time When someone fights on pay-per-view, the numbers that come out are all over the place. You got the haters within the industry that will be feeding the media with low ball numbers. And then you've got the people involved with the fight feeding, I've done it. Do you know what I mean? But 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 1.6 million. No, I don't think so. But that would also be a global A terrible number. So maybe a million buyers, but I don't believe... I mean, certainly not in the US market, but that was a while ago now, wasn't it? I mean, I think-Yeah, you're right. It was 2020, four years ago.

So this fight for you, the way you sound alike, you're saying Jake's going to take this one.

I'd be astonished if he didn't. I mean, you got a young guy who's average, but can fight a little bit. Sure. But the one thing I will always respect him for is he's He's dedicated himself to the craft now for four or five years. Okay, so he's training properly. He's doing proper training cams. He's definitely improving. Punch is pretty hard, like physical guy. And then you got Mike Tyson, who's 58 years of age. Well, you have to understand is Mike Tyson retired from boxing about 25 years ago? When he did, he was completely spent. That was 25 years ago.

That's pretty wild thinking about it.

58 years old. I'm 45. I think you're 46. We feel like, don't we? We're still there, don't we? This guy is 14 years older than me. And if I went in there against Jake Paul now, he'd probably demolished me. I mean, I'm not Mike Tyson, but as father time, there's no replacement. 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.

Is there any chance Mike could drop?

There's a chance in every form of boxing Mike Tyson is a big guy. He's a former World Heavyweight champion. But the speed and the power and the... Listen, I'd love to see it.

I'd love to see it.

I'd love to wake up and say-How much is he getting paid for, by the way?

I don't know.

I have no idea. I mean, it's not a pay-per-view fight. It's quite interesting. It's a subscription only on Netflix, which is great. It's going to do huge numbers. I would say 10 million.

10 million?

Yeah, I would say 10 million.

Some of the guys that are still fighting, it's purely a money thing. They need to make the money to make the money.

But a lot of them, Patrick, a lot of fighters have been... I mean, probably the greatest example of a fighter that's been misrepresented and abused is Mike Tyson. The money that was generated in his career, the reality is, probably five years ago, he was out of money. 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 that's a very common theme, particularly with fighters in the '80s. Things have changed now. The fight always say, and people People like Aaron, even my dad, 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. That's why people like Don King, when he was representing Mike Tyson, he was the boss. Mike did as he's told. Now, it's a complete flick.

When did it change?

I would say, Mayweather probably did a lot of it. Mayweather set the way for a fight as being their own bosses. 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 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 Anthony Joshua, many other fighters. You sit down. Most of the time, it's with the guys that really understand the business. This is where Floyd comes in. You look at the revenue, projected revenue, revenue you know that exists, the gate, you know that's selling at 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, the 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.

This is the undercard. This is the venue hire, hotels, flights, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 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 fight-20 of net? Yes, 20 of net. Not gross. No, net, because you agree the costs.

Okay, so let me ask you a question. So if it starts at 20 million, how much is going to end up being cost?

I mean, if you're talking about the cost of a show, it could be anywhere between one and a half and three million dollars to run a show.

So let me ask you then, if the guy is getting paid six million, It doesn't matter. The one and a half is fairly consistent.

Sometimes, but maybe the cost of the undercard would decrease. If it's a mega show, you want other world title fights on, et cetera. 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, these names. The others might just say, I just want my purse. I don't want to look at any numbers. Just tell me how much I'm getting. The problem with that is they walk into a venue, they go, How much money is he making? How many pay-per-view buys did it do? And then like that, someone says, It did 2 million buys. The promoter's made 50 million. That's why I love the open book because it's so transparent. And I'm happy with those margins. You talk about AJ, these guys making 40, 50, 60 million a fire. And sometimes that 20 % will decrease over time when a fire starts making more It's a lot of money because they might say to you, actually, 20 % is a lot of money. And most of the time I go, 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. I think you got to be fair and you got to be honest and you got to be transparent. That's how you build long term relationships with talent.

What is the role you play? 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 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 conversations are we having?

So many different levels to it. I mean, taking me aside for now, the company, the business, when you're talking about away from the shows and you're pitching to an athlete, you've just turned professional. 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 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 to mold you into a Championship fighter. Now, the business, when you talk about what is their role, absolutely everything. From the TV deals.

Their role, meaning the promoter's role.

The promotional company.

Not agent, not manager, not these guys.

The manager's role is I need 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 it's a middle ground to push, push, push.

Do you guys not get along? Do managers and promoters typically have fights? Who has fights with who? Who doesn't? Friction is where?

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. The manager don't give a fuck about the promotional business. They just want as much money as possible for the fighter. Got it. 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, No, I like that chat with Eddie Hearn. I think I'm going to manage fighters. 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. I've been thinking, I think this guy should get $10 million. I'm like, On what planet? But I think that's Saudi Arabia and this and that. And now I'm saying, I'll show you the PnL for the show. And you tell me how he should get $10 million. I'm not really interested in that. And that's 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 PnL in boxing. Do you know what I mean? You're just dealing with someone who said, I don't care what it says.

Let me tell you, did you see the interview with The Rock when I asked him about the negotiation he did with Vince McMahon? He said something so interesting. I said, So, Vince McMahon, he built a $10 million company. What was he 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, I've been doing great, and I want to get paid. He says, 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 two 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 is 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 accountants. 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. You're goes by. Vincent's down with him. He says, So what do you think you made last year? He 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. The 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.

That's the problem. Sometimes a manager is talking to you about talent, and they don't sell tickets. They don't drive subscriptions. And That's a major problem.

So what risk do you take? Do you take a risk and say, I don't know. If I'm, no matter what, got to pay this guy 10 million, 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?

Timing, position in the marketplace, position with your new broadcaster, so many different things. The way you're feeling that day, 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 decisions without emotion. That's key, based on the reality of the numbers. My dad's a chartered accountant, one of the youngest ever qualified. And he has drummed into me since day one. Numbers, numbers.He.

Was a Snuckers guy.Yeah, Snucker.

Yeah, He was a Snuckers guy. Yeah, he created all the major Snuckers.

Wasn't he like a chairman of the board for 2010 or something like that?

I'm sure you've seen the McMahon show on Netflix. He made me feel very normal. But again, You talk about that winning mentality. I mean, dangerous at that level because it becomes... I mean, winning is always everything to me.

What is the biggest losing fight for you business-wise? Where you walked away and said, Shit, we lost millions of this one.

Anthony Joshua had just lost at Madison Square Garden to Andy Ruiz. It was a huge upset. We had the number one fighter in the world. I remember that. Jarrelle Miller failed drug test three weeks before the fight. We didn't have an opponent. We wanted a real fight because we were sold out. Ruiz was this fat guy, but he was a very good fighter. We went with Ruiz, and AJ wasn't right anyway. Anyway, he gets stopped at Madison Square Garden, and I'm like, Fuck. And it's like, now Matrim, oh, Hearn's in trouble. Matrim, what are they going to do with our Ajay? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Right, we need to bounce back. The team are like, What do you mean? I said,Lomachenko, one of the great fighters at the time.

When I say lose, I mean money. You lost money on that?

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. He'll sell out the '02, do massive pay-per-view numbers, get the deal from Aaron, 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, Fuck 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. So we probably lost a million bucks there as well, but also the swing of taking him to America. And 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? Can't. And that's what experience brings over time. And my dad's actually always takes the Mickey out of me for that show. 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.

Why do you think it didn't sell? How did it not convert?

Because you have to understand the business. There's a big difference between the hardcore fight fan and the casual audience. The guys that can interact and sell in the casual sports fan market are the guys that drive the huge pay-per-views. Canelo Álvarez, Anthony Joshua, Floyd Mayweather. He captivates. Lomachenko is a hero of the hardcore boxing fanatics, but that's a tiny, tiny percentage of the ecosystem.

So a 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 Hurn is more about self-promotion than the sport, and so he's turning it into a circus. Bob Aram. 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. How much of it today Our media company's name is Valuetamen. 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 it. They're like, Why would people watch this here? This is the data that came out, showing up the report. We looked at this. Rob texted me and said, Pat, look what we're ranking. This is that night. We had us ahead of everybody. And by the way, we're a bunch of amateurs. I'm not in this space. It's not like we do this for a living.

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, 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 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 it, the story behind it, the this, the that, the movie, what is it, Warrior? When you 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 da, All to him, that scene in the hotel room where 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 fight is 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?

Virtually all of it. I mean-Virtually all of it. Because what I said about that hardcore fight, you make a great fight. This small audience, hardcore fight fans, they're the loudest, by the way, as well. They're all in.5 %?

Is that 5 percent?About that.Okay.This.

Is the casual.Oh, my God. That big. What I am, you talked earlier about the reason I said take me away from the equation 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 story.Me.

The viewer.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 have 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 UFC, 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 matchroom being there is enough to penetrate that market.

And that's why UFC and WW 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 fucking 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 three, two, one.

I have 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.

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, do you You see yourself as a better promoter than any of these guys, minus Don? You think it's you and Don?

On a different level.

You think you're on a different level? Different level.

Because they can't- Bob Aram. Bob Aram is 93 years old. The thing that Bob will have me on right now as we sit here and talk, He's longevity. I know you got to respect the hustle. He's 93 years old. People keep saying to me, How much longer do you want to do this? You're on a road, you're doing this. I said, Well, I fucking love it. If I stop 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, Rumbling the Jungle. In terms of legacy, I can't yet compete with Bob Aaron 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 a narrative. 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? Oh, no, 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. Fucking turn the mics on and go live. And that when you live and you breathe it, you have the confidence to be able to do that stuff. I can talk any time about any fight, any fight, or 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. I care about the business, but really, I don't care what people think. I don't care what people say. I want to create story lines. I want to create narrative. I don't want to be a clown. You're running a hugely successful company, but you got to be talking about us. 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 You look down that list that you just presented, and you've got MBC at what? I don't know, 30th. A major, major broadcaster that's institutionalized in the world of elections and politics. And you got three times the viewership on a feed. 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 didn't know what the app was.

By the way, you just brought me to two questions here, but I'll go to the first one first. Don King, when you look at him, what made him special? Have you guys had interaction together?

I don't like the way Don King does business. 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 Aaron.

He lives down the street from me.

In Hollywood, right? Yeah. And he's not 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, his health is not in an amazing place, but I just watched an interview with him the other day because it's 50 years since the Rumbling in the Jungle. And he's trying to sell a show to Saudi Arabia to do a 50-year anniversary of the Rumbling in the Jungle. And I'm actually listening to him going, Fuck it, I'd do it. And I'm thinking, he's unbelievable. He comes on at first. I'm thinking, oh, here he goes. Here's Don King. What's he going to say now? And then at the end of it, I'm looking at it going, you know what?. I think he'll probably do it. He'll probably do it. And he's another guy. He's a massive legacy.

What is it? Is it charm? Is it charisma? Is it a little bit off? Is it a story?

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. 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 shit 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 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. When I've got a huge show that week, I'm just on fire. I sit down at the press, I'm blowing off there. And you know the tough sales. When you've gone to pitch someone, you're like, fuck.

Sometimes you get it through. Sometimes you sell out the arena. Sometimes you do a great, but you think, someone says, Wow, how did he do that? That's great promotion. Yeah, we got away with that one. But then you 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 the tougher sell. And that's more of a challenge.

What do you think What's Dana's gift and what's Vince's gift, in your opinion?

No fear. Dana's. Yeah. No regard for what people think. I'm going to give it to you straight. Incredibly hard working. 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, he's 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. Aew or whatever, when they started out. The thing with Vince, unfortunately, probably led to his demise, is whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, we're going to win.

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?

Impregnate his daughter. I mean, this is where it just goes to another level. That documentary, I sat there with my jaw open. Most of the-I couldn't stop watching it. Unfortunately, the rest is so when the wrestler died. Yeah, Owen Hart. And they carried on the show. They're telling their story about what happened, and 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. Do you believe him? I just think, I was trying to think about myself being in that situation in a live event when that happens at the show. You know how many people he would have overruled to keep that show on? Because I know my people would be saying to me, Eddie, you have to cancel this show now. But I couldn't believe-How'd you rank that documentary?Unbelievable.I couldn't stop.Unbelievable..

Two people texted me, Matt and Sheena Sopala, and another, Steve Avetian, is like, You guys got to watch. I'm like, Listen, 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, 10 o'clock. Everyone's asleep. I go downstairs in my office. I watch first episode. I'm like, Dude, I got to watch a second. I watch second one. I'm like, Give me a... I watch a third one. I get up on Sunday, 6 o'clock while everybody I go downstairs in my office, What's Daddy doing over there? Watch the next one.

It gets better and better.

I could not believe how sick this was, the way he did what he did and then the story with his kids and what happened at the end.

But don't you think that is all the signs of power? Not necessarily greed, but it wasn't even really money, was it? It was just power and control. And I think that's a great lesson of... I actually think that sometimes people think that the more... I mean, I think 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 you become and the wealthier you'll become, actually, life becomes easier and easier. Whereas his life spiraled out a little bit of control because of that pure want for winning. And that's why 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. You know what?

If you think about, 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 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 say... And it's almost like a little bit of psychotic edge that comes from that, right? It is, yeah. 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 if you don't have control over your imagination, you can really go to a bad place and you can have a different relationship with your dad. You don't want to do that. But if you're able to come back... By the way, transitioning. Bob Aram. Was it Bob Aram 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, 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 take that as a compliment?

I guess so. I mean, again, sometimes I border on the line of delusion about my own ability on things. You? Yeah, because I think I can do everything.

Are you aware or you're not aware when you're in it?

I'm aware, but I'm also like... 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 there's this guy called Leonard Elabe, he works for Floyd Mayweather, and he's like, Am I driving mad? When he talks about me, he's thrombing at the mouth, and I'm loving it. And I said as a throwaway line once, I I wouldn't be surprised. I see myself actually going into acting, which I actually probably do. But again, just like delusion. I'd say it to my friends, and they'd go, Shut up. And I said to him, 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? Or he's come out and he's like, Did you see her the other day? I mean, he's talking about being the new James Bond. I mean, what the fuck is this guy up? And I'm watching him going, You're so angry. Wow. It was actually a throw away line. And then I started thinking to myself, Do you know what?

I could probably do that. See with Aaron. And then recently, I started talking in the UK about running for Prime Minister. Because my audience is the people We do 10 different sports at Matrim, and they're all working class sport where the man on the street follows and watches. So I'm quite well known within that That place. And we got big problems in the UK at the moment, big problems. And I just came out and I was like, look, make me the next Prime Minister. And I was talking about some of not necessarily the policies, but the problems in the country. And I was like, before you know it, actually, there's this swell of support across social media. And it's like, you know what? I'd vote for it. We could do worse, all this 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 I ran for MP, 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. Our family, we've lived there our whole lives.

I would100 % win. It's not a state.

What is that comparable to here?

Not a state.

Is it a county?

Would it be considered a county? Yeah, 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. Because especially how the country is at the moment and the need to do something and to advocate for change. I'm just messing around. Then you start thinking to yourself, but when you say that psychotic edge, there probably is a little bit of that because I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not cracked boxing, but we're really on the way. What's next? Do you know what I mean? And he's saying to me, with all the aggravation in your your life, could you think of anything worse than being Prime Minister of this country? And it's like, and stop. I'm only joking anyway. I'm sitting there going. Are you the horror? I don't think I'm bright enough to be Prime Minister. But then you look at what's happening around the world, and then you just think, really, and we go back to your show and the numbers and that 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, some people you tweak to and you go, and then a lot of that world is just like, who's going to grab it by the horns and go and make it different? 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. So, yeah, I don't think you're going to see me running for Prime Minister, but I like challenges. I'm 45 years of age. I don't know. What's next?

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 When I finished this book, a year ago, I got the strangest phone call about one of the characters in the book where the guy wanted to meet with me, and he read the book, and afterwards, he's 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 a Syrian, whose father was involved in the Iranian revolution, linked to Sivak, 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 of 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 this 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 Arminian, if you're Syrian, if you're Persian, this is a book you're going to be reading and saying, Holy moly, this is the 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 secret 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 Shrug, 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 It's 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 creative person, if you like fiction books, if you enjoyed Atlas Shrug, 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 how it works. This is very creative. If you haven't placed your order yet, now you can order it on Simon & 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. I'm going on this wild journey, and we have some plans on this book here. If you support the things that I work on, I would appreciate you going to reading the order the book on Amazon, and then post a review.

You made a comment on a 14-year-old kid, Daniel, that got with a Samurai sword, that got stabbed and died by a 36-year-old and all the stabbing that's going on over there.

We had recently, I think it was three or four people that passed away. It was a Taylor Swift dance class. And a lunatic goes in and kills, I think, three or four young girls. We're talking seven, eight, nine years of age, I think six other people 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 and you will see mass shootings. And it's like, I don't live here full-time, but 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. Someone got stabbed in Brentwood up the road. What the fuck? There is absolutely no regard or respect for-How did UK get there?

You've been there. I mean, that's This is your life.

A mixture of things. I think, generally, I had this argument the other day with this charity that they're a great job of... I said that what we need to do is we need to impose immediate sanctions and 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 a prison, Kyrstam. 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 gangs and bad. And we do a huge amount for the Matrim Sport Charity Foundation, the sport within the community. I'm telling you, Patrick, you may not have been around boxing. You enter After 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 to coaches.

You get all of that when you go through a boxing club. Our government are closing down these clubs in the community because they're running out of money. So the kids that used to... The60, 70 kids from the estate 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 because you know. How old are your kids?

3, 8, 11, 12.

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, if I spoke to my dad like that growing up, he would have given me a beating. Kids these days, they just don't have the respect. Even if they're good kids with good hearts, things are changing. They're mesmerized by devices. They've lost all social interaction, one-on-one social interaction. And I see it because I'm a parent as well. Come off that. All right, okay. All right. Put it down. Do you know what I mean? Talk to me. And that's a dangerous world because they just become engrossed in this web of algorithm.

Yeah, I'm looking at this here, Rob. This is what police, a British teen accused of fairly stabbing three girls also made poison and had a terror manual.

What's a terror? So this came out.

This is just a few days ago, by the way.

Yeah, well, we do have an immigration issue in the country, which there is massive, almost like civil unrest about right now. And what happened was, what they do is when this happened, they don't like to the name or the background of the killer, 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.

What does it mean, an Al Qaeda manual? Like a-Goal of a Lord, Rob. What? So Axel, the 18-year-old, the Q7, basically for terrorist activities. Was charged with possessing terrorism-related material, producing a toxin after an Al Qaeda training manual and highly toxic poison. We're found in this on the Staben in South Port, town of UK, where it's Ignited far-right rights across the country after a storm of misinformation. Emerge online that it's a newly arrived to the country. And now some British lawmakers have launched fresh accusations. Government cover up is already charged with three murders of B. B.

King 6, 7, 9.

Are you 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 lower, Rob. So on Tuesday, police said that two recent discoveries of homerism, banks, and 6,000 times prompted them to slap on new charges, toxin found in the carbines, and a PDF file of military studies and Jihad against tyrants, the Al Qaeda's training manual.Wow..

It was like they didn't want this information to come out. Why didn't? Because they knew. We talked about, there were riots recently in the country, and they felt that it would escalate the riots.

I saw this guy, Tommy Robinson did something. I don't know if you know who he is, Tommy. I think Piers had him on, did an interview with him. Tommy Robinson talked about what's going on. Did Tommy go away, by the way?

I believe so, yeah.

Can you see if Tommy went to jail? Rob, just go to Tommy, arrested, jail. There you go. It's fine.

Other one of them. Jail for 18 months.

For what? For that documentary? What's he jailed for? Jail for 18 months after he admitted to be in Peter Faw's example. She's a different person. Whose real name is this? Manal Mondi, Virginia Kate Rulton 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 in this place. It's wild. I lived in Iran for almost 11 years. And part of it, we left. I mean, a Christian family was tough. You're going to school, your parents are telling, don't tell anybody where we lean politically or 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 then I lived in Germany for a year and a half at a refugee camp, and then we came here. Man, it's a wild place, your country. Would you ever leave it? Or are you at a point that you don't feel safe raising your two kids?

We got a new government. We have a labor government in now that are historic in terms of raising the taxes. And I always say that 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 your financial commitment to the country, and actually, more importantly, the safety of your children. Do you want them to grow up there? 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? There are plenty of places around the world that are much, much safer. But you also want your child to have a normal life, to grow up in that school.How old are they?15 and 12.And.

You're married?Yeah. Is your wife from there? Is she American or is she UK?

She's UK. For me, the kids are like... It's so difficult because you can take them to this nice place and this nice school and an international business school and stuff like this. And it's like, do you want them to live that life? Do you want that? That's interesting. Do you know what I mean? Because I know what my-The toughness. Yeah. My dad would never have wanted me to go down that route. Because I don't think I would have been the same person.

How many siblings? How many total?

One sister I have.

Did he treat her the same as you?

Not really. He defines me as his project. I was like, Thanks, dad. It's really nice of you.

And he's a project manager. It's my project, his name. We can see what we're going to do with him.

But 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. He says, I don't have a son. So it's a shame. You got no one to take over the business. He's like, Well, my daughters could do it. Oh, really? All right. Okay.

So he's 76. Did he grow up in a rough neighborhood coming up?

Yeah, pretty rough. East London. His dad was a bus driver. His mom cleaned houses for-Was he around with the craze and all that stuff? Not really. He knew about those guys. He used to put fruit machines and gambling machines in nightclubs that they ran and stuff like that.

You see, you know what? You wonder, in New York, the crime where New York's at right now. Don't get me wrong, the mob did what the mob did. But if 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 crossed the line, did anything to their community and their kids, they were not good people to be messing around with. Sometimes you wonder the level of safety and how they're... By the way, which is more or 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?

Yeah, I wouldn't have that conversation. But I think it's more like-You said you wouldn't have that conversation. My thing is with my children, I just want them to have a passion for something. 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? No, I got my My friends at school. But sometimes you got to make a decision for their future. I think it's not just really my kids necessarily. I just look at the country and I look at the kids. 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, sometimes being told off, doing their work, that's what's missing in society today. I think we got a major problem. That's worldwide. But I'm speaking I'm thinking about my country, specifically.

Yeah, I'm just wondering what's going to happen there. I think what is needed for that to change. I had a guy from Poland, Dominic Targinski. 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 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, he turned on the camera, he lights up. He lights up when the camera's on. And he says, do you know Poland Everyone's got the lowest percentage of rape, lowest percentage of unemployment. They're 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 and 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. I don't know what's going to happen to UK. Uk is UK. When you think about the financial capital of the world for the longest time before it was New York, you guys had it. And you had it for a long time. I don't know. I'm wondering if we're going to get an announcement today that you're on it for office. You're going to do something about that place. Not just yet. We're going to bring it. 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. Out of all the social media platforms. I'm with Dana, and Dana says, Pat, let me tell you about Super Slap. Watch this. I watched the clip, 40 million views. I'm like, You got to be kidding. I got to buy this. He says, You got to come to a Super Slap event. 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 in the same, 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 he went to TikTok. He went to Instagram, right? Out of all the social media platforms today, if you were to rank him, which one is positively influencing boxing the most?

Great question. Twitter. Really? Yeah. I mean, I would say Twitter is without question the most toxic environment I've ever seen in my life. I think this thing-That's good for boxing. I mean, yeah, basically. And that's exactly that. There are more opinions. There are more-I mean, if I read Twitter in a day, 90 % of what I read is about boxing. It's complete rubbish, right? But it's full of boxing geniuses. And that ecosystem of algorithms are just flying out everywhere. Do you know what I mean? Someone can make anything up. Next thing, 100,000 retweets or 100,000 views, 400 retweets. Instagram, for me, good for building a fighter's profile, but difficult to actually build the narrative of conversation in the same way. Tiktok, yeah, 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 is the cespit. Twitter is the cespit of knowledge or supposed knowledge of fans. And that's why a lot of our guys, a lot of the guys 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.

That's what I'm saying. I wonder in the fighting world, which one it is. It's Twitter. 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, Rob, and go to the most viewed. Just go to videos on the software popular. How many views is it?

Holy shit, 300.

And then go to UFC, Rob. Let's see what UFC is at. So WW 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.Comparison.It's.

Still a huge amount, by the way. Still huge.

But does boxing have... Type in boxing, see if boxing has got it.

I think ours would sit at about 600, 700, 1,000 match in box in YouTube. We're one of the biggest top rank, probably have a million, million and a half. The DAZN are very good on social.

How many is that, Rob? 4.46 million.

Yeah, that's a lot for boxing.

Yeah, I guess it's easier if it's all centralized, going through one thing, which is UFC and WWE, versus it's all fragmented all over the place.

But also, the key to driving those huge numbers is those powerful moments. That's 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? When you see someone who slap someone in the face, their eyes roll in the back of their head and their unconscious falling backwards. People are like, Share, share.

No, I mean, that's the thing. When I see it, I'm like, Dude, holy shit. The 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? No.

You're going to hang on.

It's four guys, they're hanging off a pull-up bar, okay? 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 going to lie to you, it was so entertaining watching this. It was so entertaining watching this. I'm sitting there saying, You know what? This could actually be something. Because if the slapping thing goes, who knows what it'll take up? Let me get into a couple of other questions here, and then we'll wrap up. Ryan Garcia, I had him on a couple of times. He had his fight with Devin Haney. Good fight. When you watched 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?

I was representing Devin that night. I've never seen... I've known Ryan for a few years, and his behavior going into that fight just changed so drastically to the point of eight weeks out from the fight, the first press conference I was talking to him, and I just turned to our guy as I went, What has happened to Ryan? He was just flying. The whole build-up, everything, his behavior was just... 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. Fast forward to the fight, the weighing comes. He's overweight. He doesn't make the official weight, the contracted weight. He 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, the drugs test, on the Friday and the Saturday of the fight. Then all of a sudden, everything changes. The guy has won, but he has performance-enhancing drugs in his system during the fight.

That's unequivocal. That's impossible to say he didn't. Then it skirts back to how did it get there? 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 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 way in. 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.

When you say that to the average person, and let me tell you how that comes across to me, 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.

The reality is no one really knows. Some will say, Well, it's a masking agent for something that he was doing. The reality is no one will ever know. Ryan's argument, 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.

So then let me ask you, would there be a... Like the Houston Astros, I don't know if you follow baseball. Houston Astros win the World Series five years ago, whatever the timeline was. And then stories comes out when the guy hits the home run, he's like, Guys, don't do anything because he's got stuff in his chest. He's like, he didn't want to show wiring. They're like, These guys cheated. They got caught not cheating. And Rob Manfred let them keep the, what do you call it, the World Series Championship. Aaron Judges was pissed, the Dodger. A bunch of people were pissed because they cheated. But then they came back and they won. What year, 2017, was something broken. So they won in 2017, 2018. What year did they win the World Series? 2017. Everyone's talking shit about these guys, right? Then they come back. And a few years later, 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 of guys left, but the main guys were there. One of the main guys was there, and they went 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. You can check whatever you want, right? Everybody's like, Hey, you can't say shit about these guys. Now they won. In this case, let's say that is the case, okay? What if you guys go back and negotiate and double down on the...

I think the world would want to see-Rematch is huge. I think it will happen. I mean, there's a lot of bad blood. Devon and his father feels like you coming overweight, you had that in your system. That's a dangerous sport. If Ryan was intentionally cheating, now you have this case that's running out.

Have you seen it? Now you're going criminal.

Which is actually really interesting. Contractually, obviously, he's breached. But the argument, I guess, of the case is that he's physically harmed the opponent by breaching the agreement.

Has he gone paid already or not yet? The fight has gone paid?

Yeah, they got paid. They got paid. But now he's suing Ryan Garcia. It's actually quite an interesting case because it may really diffuse. I think one of the problems is Ryan got a year's ban. Actually, time you finish the fight, had your holiday, you probably wouldn't fight for six months anyway. So it's really a six month ban. So how are you going to really make a fighter fearful of the consequences of testing positive?How do you do that?Well, maybe this case. A lot of people have said that in the past about you have a case against the fighter.

Has it ever happened? Do you remember that one guy that 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 he says, Hey- Margarita. Yeah, Margarita.

They had loads of stacked gloves, loads of gloves with concrete on the wraps.

What happened to that guy?

I don't think there was anything. There was no criminal case. He didn't go to jail. He got banned. No, he got banned. Permanently banned? I believe so, yeah.

Permanently banned.

A year? I don't know the exact- That's nothing, though.

To do that, that's nothing. I'm trying to see the lawsuit. They have Haynie on on Ryan Gors. I saw this. I'm just wondering what the lawsuit was and how much it is. I don't know why I think 30 million, but maybe- For battery fraud and breach of contract. Okay, there it is. For battery fraud and breach of contract. Have they announced what the amount is or is it just a general? No, I don't believe it. Okay, so it's not... The star was suspended for one year on final reports of $1.2 million in the fight. And Haynie would never have fought a boxer who was positive on PED. Got it. Haynie 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 actually really enjoyed watching this fight. And then afterwards, we see this. You obviously know what this is. Go ahead and play this clip, Rob.

It's great for TV. He was amazing. Well done. Oh, really? Fuck you. Fuck you. I shot you, you piece of shit. I'm You might fuck you. You know you're a piece of shit. And that's what you get. Now, what are you going to say? Who came, bro? Who came? You're fucking Devon Hady. Fuck you. Now, who you got? Who do you got? Geronides. Who? Geronides. Who? Geronides.. How about Pitbull? You know he's good.Jeron Ennis is good.Jeron Ennis.

It's a good performance.

Sorry.

I know you're on the road.

When you win, I'll give you all the respect in the world. Okay, give I'm trying to respond. I just told him. You did? Absolutely. This is how we work. Don't worry. I was starting to respect you. I accept your apology. Thank you.

I accept your apology.

That was the last line with the killer.

It took you half a second to respond back, right off to bat, too. But yeah, look, for me, obviously, they got to do what they got to do with the contract. Some people are 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 weight to do the testing on them. But if that fight happens-Oh, a big fight, yeah. It's going to be- Big fight.

It will happen, I believe.

How soon do you think it will happen?

I mean, look, he's going to be banned till what? May. It's nothing. So Devon needs to fight, really. I said to him the other day, that was a tough defeat physically. You could really do with a comeback fight of some respect, confidence, Going through camp because that was a beating.

You think he needs a fight before he goes with Ryan? I think so.

I would advise it.

To fight somebody before-Just because when you get beat like that, it's a long time out of the ring.

You're talking about over a year out of the ring anyway. Ryan's Ryan. 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. I think hopefully he's on the right path now because he's a good kid, actually. He's got It's a good heart. Then the build-up will be wild. Then we talk about narrative.

Are you kidding me? Are you going to be behind it?

That's what it'll be. Because Oscar De La Hoya, me and him are like this.

He said somethingWhat's wrong about you. He responded to you, I think, yesterday.

What happened with you guys? We want to do this 5v5, which is our five of our best against five of Goldenboy's best in Saudi Arabia. But he came out today and said, I want to fight Eddie on the card.

He's so funny.

People say to me, You know he beat the shit out you, don't you? I said, The guy was a pound for pound great fire. He said, Well, you wouldn't do it, would you? I said, There's always enough. He He came out today. He's quite funny. He came out today on his social media. 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.

I will fight Eddie for free as a gift to you. For free, it'll be my pleasure. But look, I only need about two months of training.

It actually went on for a while after that. But I was like, You need two months of training to fight me? So 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 will break pay-per-view records. So it's up to you, your excellency. They're like, Are you joking? I'm like, But this is what I say about the delusion earlier. So people are going to me, You wouldn't do that. I go, No, of course I wouldn't do that. And then I'm like, I would do that. But is there real animosity towards each other?

He hates me.

Oh, my God, he hates me. I see Oscar De La Hoya as this... I mean, one of my favorite fires. He's just a legend of the sport. But I put his nose out of joint so bad. I signed Canelo Ávarez when Canelo took him to court, and he come to join me. And for years, I have this ability to make people's blood pressure rise beyond all kinds of levels. That's the thing with Oscar. Actually, we could do a lot of business together, but he's a guy that works off in motion rather than a clear mind to do good business.

When it happened, what's your story from Canelo and his fallen out? Because, listen, at one of the fights, Canelo would not stop talking trash.

Yeah, that was the high me. They hate each other bad. Oscar doesn't like me, but I don't think it's not like him and Canelo. They cannot stand each other. Oscar says, I built you, you owe me everything. And cannello says, I made your company. And then there's a lot of financial disputes and stuff like that. But Canelo is probably the coolest guy I've ever met. The coolest guy Yeah. And one of the straightest guys I've ever met, 100 %. I did about seven fights for him. And if the business is right for him, 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. As long as you always know where you stand, that's all good. He's a great guy.

You said the Excellency earlier with the Turkey- His Excellency, yeah. Alashik. Alashik. How How much is he disrupting the game? I don't know who said it that he's the biggest name right now. I think ESPN may have called him the number one- Most powerful man in boxing. Yeah, something like that, influential, powerful man in boxing. Why do you think that's the case?

Because they have a I've seen budgets and the opportunity to do whatever they want in the space. Riyadh Season, which is what he effectively runs in that schedule of events, he's been in operation for a year now. You've seen Furi and Garnu, Garnu, Joshua, Furi, Usik, Bivol Betabiev, the five V5 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, And what I love about these people, firstly, talk about great guys. He's one of the funniest people I've ever met.

Funniest?

Funniest. If you read his WhatsApps to me, all he does is take the mic out, take the piss out of me all We have a fight or lose. You are shit, Eddie. You need to retire. But his energy to get things done, the pace that they move, you do a deal here now, done. You go away, paper it, get it done. Next. Do you know what I mean? And once that's done, it's not three months down the line, we're still going, it's this and that. It's done. And you sit in a room with him and he puts a card together and you're just like, wow.What part of it as well?The whole of the fight. Obviously, the cost of the He knows 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.

When you say he's clever, what- A clear vision for the sport, he understands it commercially I don't know if you've seen the promos that they put together.

Guy Ritchie did the last one. It's like a mini Oscar-winning film. The promotion, the way they're building the perception of the sport again into this huge event It's been brilliant for the sport. You're always going to get people who moan and why are there events in Saudi? Why not? There are events in Las Vegas. Every part of the world-Who bitch is about it?Fighters or-Fans. Sometimes people aren't involved.

I know, but- Listen, you put up a fight. If it's a fight that the world wants to see, they don't give a shit where it's at. Put it, we'll come to it. Matter of fact, didn't you, during COVID, put some stuff? You put some fights in your backyard.

We had We had about eight shows booked. We paid for the venues, the flights, the hotels, everything. And then COVID hits, and the government says, All live sports events canceled. I'm like, What? We got all our dates with our broadcaster to be fulfilled. We got no arenas you can go to. Actually, this is our office, actually, our head office. It's my old house, where I lived there from the age of four.

Is this the house that your dad bought for $200,000? I read somewhere-£200,000. £200,000. It's like $20 million. Yeah.

So leading up there, there's some stairs, just by the bottom windows. I sat on those stairs during COVID, and I was like, What the fuck? I looked at the lawn, and I was like, We're going to do it here. And they were like, What? I said, I'm going to create fight camp. And I said to my dad, I said, Dad, we're going to build fight camp in the garden. And he's like, What do you mean? And I said, We're going to have an arena in the garden, and we're going to hire 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. 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. It was the most unbelievable thing you will ever see. It completely changedHow many people would be there, by the way? No, no one was allowed.It's just a fight.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, look, this is what-You're joking.

This is the backyard.

This is the ring walk for the backyard, pyrotechnics.

Where are you selling this fight?

All around the world.Paperview.Yeah. There was a couple of pay-perview events within the four week period. But don't forget, you're going to the broadcaster and saying, Right, I owe you four shows, five shows within that contract term. I can't deliver them, but I can now because I've built this fucking arena in my garden, and we're going to do it from my garden.

How did they feel about it?

They loved it because there's no live sport. All the other sports just closed down. They went, Well, we can't do anything at the moment till- Are you and Dana talking at that time or not at all? A little bit. I think it probably got his attention a little bit.

So you did it first? Yeah.

I did this before the apex.

And by the way, you didn't just do it anywhere. You didn't do this in Florida or Texas. You did this in UK. 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? Uk, the politics.

No, we followed the rules. So the rules were that you could do behind doors, closed events, 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.

Were they sent to watch you?

Were they-Yeah, the council would come down, make sure everything's in order.

Masks are being-Did anybody try to get in your way or they were supportive? If you did it the right way, they didn't bother you.

I think there were a few neighbors around who were like, What is going on here?

I'm assuming this is a high-end community, the neighborhood.

Yeah, so so. But also, I was saying to the area, Brentwood, 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.

And how much you spend on this on the backyard? The whole thing, just for the set up.

About £2 million.

£2 million? Yeah. So at the time, what would that be in US dollars?

3 million dollars.

So you spent three... Was it rental or did you buy-No, we built this structure. It's still there right now.

No, it's taken down. Where did you put it? What did you do with all the-It just gets taken away. So you're hiring the trust, you're building the trust. There's probably some better pictures as well.

No, you had the other one was really clean, Rob. You had one that was really clean.

I put fight camp, Matrim or Eddie Herr.

Yeah, that's a big A. V. You got rigging, you got the...

That's sick. But the power, what that did for our business was that got the attention because COVID was a global issue. Look at that. This got so much exposure globally. And of course, when people say it was in your back garden, that was even... Because after this, eventually, we went to an arena and we just hired an arena and did it behind closed doors. Fucking could be in the middle It could be anywhere. But this was the first thing that we did.

Is there people there? Do I see people?

This was year two.Now.

You can't do it.Now.

I sold tickets, which I didn't like because I got randoms in my garden, drinking. We had pizza stands, taco stands. We got all the champagne bars. 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 actually my house and my head office.

This is wild at a time That's what it was like that to make sure while everybody else is here, shitless.

Yeah, well, it was a wild time. What is it he said? One of the rules that my dad said, I don't know, number six or seven, which was-Which one? I can't remember it, but there was definitely something. Here we go. This is the build, right? This is the year, too. So that's the hospitality tent at the back. We had DJs in there, all champagne bars.

This is beautiful.

Where is this, by the way? Brentwood in Essex. It's about 15 miles outside of London.

Is this all in one? This is day three or day- It takes about a week or so to build it. Got it. So when it gets darker, rain.

And this is summer, by the way. So then it starts raining, and we're thinking, What is going on here?

We just had our thing that we did in our hangar, and it was pouring. And at the moment, people started It's showing up. There's a 75% chance it's raining. Guess what happens? It stops raining. And that's wild, man. So, Eddie, next. What's the next big thing? If you were to say some big fight. By the way, do you watch UFC or no? Yeah, I do. Do you like it? Do you love it? Or you just watch it?

I've been to a couple with Dana, kindly got me up. I think it's compelling. I think it's just a tremendous product. I'm very jealous of almost the control All they have over their talent, where it's like you sign a central contract and it's like, You are fighting him on November 30th, see you there, and your money is already there. With us, it's an individual negotiation for every fight. That's the control part that he is-That's why the business is so good.

Do you think because the way boxing is fragmented, it can't compete with the UFC?

I feel like boxing already competes with the UFC. People talk about boxing's dead. There's nothing like a big fight in terms of the interest it generates, the numbers it can generate as well. Boxing is so historic globally. And that's really the plan for us as a business. I got to tell you one thing before 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, 30,000 tickets for people to watch Darts. Please Google Luke Littler, 9 Darter. 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 theater there. Darts is taking over America. It is the ultimate night out experience. You need to watch the video of Luke Littler on YouTube. Wait till you see the crowd.Fancy dress. What are you talking about?

Darts. Darts.

I'm telling you now, you're going to play this conversation back. Watch this.

Which one? This top one.

Sound. Need lots of sound. This kid's 6 then. I think they went on the practice board.

They've changed the downboard.

They've made the triple bigger.

Don't say that This is amazing.

20,000 people at the OT. They were both on nine.

So I'm just saying, Can he? Can he? Can he? Yes, it's you, Beauty. Sixteen years old. Look what a He's a nine-dark finish in the final of the Premier League of Darts. 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. How old is the other guy?

He was even Is he somebody- He's a world champion, the other guy.

He's the world champion, the 16-year-old. Now, is it common for 16-year-olds to be good at this game? No.

But already, Patrick, darts, it's a phenomenon. It's the greatest party in town. People are turning up You've got fancy dresses. You've got Power Rangers. You've got Smurfs, you've got Miss Univer. Look at these pictures. Look at this.

Who runs this, by the way?

We own the sport. We own the PDC, the Professional Darts Corporation. It's the governing body of the sport.

When you say we, who is we. You're on the sport.

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, Who's it? Darts. You could watch clips of this. Like, look at it. Look, where's Wally? Peter Pan. You got a chicken at the back there as well. This sport, it's only competitor in terms of viewership in the UK is Premier League football.

Now, has this always been like that or no?

Yes, but lately, the last five years. To put it in comparison, Darts is almost twice the size of our boxing business.What?Yeah.In revenue?Yes.

You're joking.An EBITDA.

An EBITDA?Yeah. That 16-year-old kid, how much does he make?

Probably $5 million a year.

And your EBITDA is still twice as much as your boxing? Yeah.and your boxing is a good size. Huge. See, that's the thing. The things we talked about with sales and promoting and those types of things makes you realize at the end of the day, salespeople rule the world, man. If 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 no?

Not really, no. A lot of our key people in the business, we never really recruited at a senior level, or we didn't until we got to a certain size. Everybody came through the business. So Frank Smith, who's my CEO for boxing, he joined the company at 15. Matt Porter, who runs the PDC, joined the company at 16.

What do you mean 16? Years old? Years old. And how old is he now?

Thirteen.

So the 15-year-old is now the CEO of boxing?

At 32. Matt Porter is the CEO of PDC. He's 40 years old. Emily Fraser runs Multisport. She joined at 17. So he loves to give people the opportunity to work through the business. And that's what I always say to people within a company, you will always get noticed. There are no barriers to entry in boxing. There is no barriers to growth for you within the business. And 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 I pitch 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, But 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.

What a great story, man. Let me tell you, I had no idea where the direction of the conversation was going to go, but I know it was going to have a fun time. But I didn't know it was going to be this good. I had a freaking blast talking to you. Maybe next time, if your father is over here in town, I would love for us to do one talking together. If he's ever in Florida.

I'd love to have that conversation with him. You would love that.

Anyway, Anyways, brother, this was great. I appreciate you for coming out. Cheers. 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. While I finished this book, a year ago, I got the I was on a phone call about one of the characters in the book where the guy wanted to meet with me, and he read the book, and afterwards, he's like, Wait a minute. Am I the villain in the book? This is a story about a character named Asher, who is half Arminian, half Assyrian, whose father was involved in the Iranian revolution, linked to Sivak, 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 of 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 this 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 Arminian, if If you're Syrian, if you're Persian, this is a book you're going to be reading and saying, Holy moly, this is the 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 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 Shrug, 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. 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 creative person, if you like fiction books, if you enjoyed Atlas Shrug, 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.

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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 on this book here. If you support the things that I work on, I would appreciate you going to reading the book, order the book on Amazon, and then post a review.