Biographie
Edward John "Eddie" Hearn is an English sports promoter who is the chairman of Matchroom Sport. Eddie has promoted many unified and undisputed world boxing champions including Canelo Álvarez, Katie Taylor, Anthony Joshua and Alycia Baumgardner. He has also promoted some of the largest events in the modern era of boxing, including the Carl Froch vs. George Groves rematch in 2014 and Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, both of which took place at Wembley Stadium with 80,000 and 90,000 fans in attendance, respectively. He is also the son of Matchroom Sport's founder, Barry Hearn OBE.
Eddie began his career at a sports management company representing golfers, eventually moving on to promote online poker with Matchroom which were broadcast in the UK on Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky Sports. Hearn met British boxer Audley Harrison at a poker game and agreed to help him rebuild his career, subsequently getting Harrison a fight with heavyweight champion David Haye for for the WBA title.
In 2015, Hearn signed an exclusive deal with UK broadcaster Sky Sports to broadcast up to 20 boxing shows per year, which was in place for 6 years and lasted until 2021. In May 2018, Hearn revealed boxing's first-ever $1 billion boxing deal (£750 million) as Matchroom and streaming service DAZN signed an agreement to stream shows across the U.S. At the heart of the deal, Hearn and Matchroom Boxing would stage 16 shows in America, which would be streamed exclusively on DAZN in the U.S., while 16 of his UK shows would also be shown on the platform.
In 2019, Hearn agreed a deal to promote a professional boxing match between YouTube personalities KSI and Logan Paul. The bout took place on 9 November 2019 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and was heavily criticized by boxing purists. Referring to their first amateur fight, which Hearn had previously declined to promote, he described it as "a really good fight" and told himself "I'm doing the rematch."
In the same year, Hearn came under further criticism for staging the Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Anthony Joshua rematch in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to the country's poor human rights record. He defended the decision by stating that Saudi Arabia wanted to improve its image, and that his job was "to provide the best opportunities for [his] fighters."
In April 2021, Hearn's father stepped aside from the role of chairman to become president of the group in an advisory role, paving the way for him to become Chairman of the Matchroom Sport Group of Companies.
On 8 May 2021, Hearn promoted Canelo Álvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders in front of 73,126 fans at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which broke the all-time attendance record for an indoor boxing event in the U.S. Later that same month, Hearn became involved in a war of words with rival boxing promoters Bob Arum, of Top Rank, and Frank Warren, of Queensberry Promotions, over the failure of a deal for a proposed Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua mega fight.
On 3 June 2021, Hearn announced that he had signed a 5-year deal that meant he would be taking his entire stable of Matchroom boxers to streaming service DAZN, which signaled the end of Matchroom's long-standing partnership with UK broadcaster, Sky Sports, and their long-running series, Sky Sports World Championship Boxing. As part of the deal, all Matchroom events were to be shown exclusively on DAZN Boxing, with at least 16 Matchroom UK fight cards per year available exclusively to DAZN subscribers in the UK and Ireland from July 2021.
In October 2022, Hearn faced the most criticism of his career so far following the Conor Benn drug scandal in which Benn, one of Hearn's most promising prospects, twice tested positive for a banned substance before his fight with rival Chris Eubank Jr. The bout, as well as the entire undercard, was subsequently canceled, but only after news of one of the positive tests was leaked to the British media during the fight week promotion, which was months after the actual failed test was first made known to the promotional parties as well as the British governing body. Simon Jordan, the co-presenter of talkBOXING, became Hearn's most fierce critic on the matter. The pair traded barbs in the online boxing community with Hearn even offering to fight Jordan in the boxing ring, an offer which was pooh-poohed by the talkSPORT radio host.
Aside from his promotional company dealings, Eddie is also a best-selling author of non-fiction. His debut book, "Relentless: 12 Rounds to Success", claimed the "Health and Fitness Book of the Year" at the 2021 Sports Book Awards.
