AS promoters go, Eddie Hearn must be the most famous and recognisable.
The chairman of Matchroom Sport, which was founded by his renowned businessman dad Barry in the 1980s, is believed to be worth around £50million.
Thanks to savvy moves in the boxing world, managing Anthony Joshua as a fighter and capitalising on his marketability, the 44-year-old lives a dream lifestyle.
He often travels by private jet, wears tailored Thom Sweeney suits and enjoys a jet-set life driving a £320,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith and £80,000 Range Rover.
His gift-of-the-gab began to show at 15, when he sold double-glazing in Essex for £3-an-hour.
Failed school
While dad Barry was swelling the coffers of Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn, Eddie was flunking Brentwood High School.
He failed his GCSE exams and was refused entry into sixth form, despite Hearn Sr’s pleas to give him a second chance because of his son’s sporting prowess in football and cricket.
“I grew up thinking I was a hard nut, and in Brentwood School I was,” he once said. “Anywhere else I was a pansy.”
Hearn went to the less selective Havering Sixth Form College in Romford to study A-levels in media studies, PE and business studies.
He was on a promise from his dad of £1,000 if he got a C or better in his exams. Hearn scored two C grades and one A.
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Window shopper
Hearn was already showing he was a born salesman when he was just a teenager.
He immediately put his cheeky chappie persona to good use working in telesales for a double-glazing firm in Essex.
“I worked for Weatherseal in Romford. I’d go there after college at night and do telesales,” he told The Guardian.
“It’s the worst job in the world but the best training for sales.
“For every rejection we had an answer on a list – from ‘I’ve just lost my husband,’ to ‘I’ve just done my double-glazing.’
“We always had a reason to make an appointment.”
Confident Hearn also told the Big Issue: “I was good in front of people. And I had a lot of chat. I suppose I could be a bit of a charmer if I wanted to be.”
Aspiring agent to big break
When he was 18, Hearn was recruited as a sports agent for LEA.
He soon prospered, bringing in clients including Ian Botham, as well as several high-profile golf clients.
His son’s work impressed his dad, who invited Eddie on board for a subdivision called Matchroom Golf.
But it was by chance Eddie got involved in boxing.
He was sat on a poker table with former heavyweight Audley Harrison, when the Olympic gold medallist asked him for help getting a fight.
“I was playing in the World Series of Poker and happened to be drawn on the same table as Audley, who asked if he could get on a Matchroom show,” Hearn said.
“So I phoned up the old man and told him: ‘I think we can do something with Audley.’
“The phone went stone quiet. Then he said: ‘You’re on your own, I’m going nowhere near him.’”
Eddie put Harrison on Prizefighter, which he duly won.
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And then he got him a European title show, in which the Londoner defeated Michael Sprott in 2010.
Incredibly, that earned Harrison a WBA title fight with David Haye.
Harrison was knocked out in the third round, but it put Hearn on the map.
“Those days are fun because it’s just you against the world,” Hearn told Square Mile.
“No one really knows who you are. You’re just this kid whose blagging it. It’s fun, then.
“Doesn’t come with the pressures and responsibilities and aggravation now. I weren’t a threat.”
On top of the world
Today, Eddie is a huge success story – reportedly dividing his time between his Bel Air home in Los Angeles and mansion in Brentwood, Essex.
In 2018, he signed boxing’s first ever billion dollar fight deal with DAZN.
World champions includin Canelo Álvarez, Gennady Golovkin, Oleksandr Usyk, Vasyl Lomachenko and Katie Taylor have all been promoted by him.
But, his biggest, most fruitful and certainly most financially rich has come no bigger than Anthony Joshua.
Amusingly, AJ is in on the “cash cow” joke he has been referred to when it comes to his relationship with Eddie and Matchroom boxing.
When asked to comment on a photo with Hearn and Matchroom CEO Frank Smith by DAZN, the two-time unified champion jokingly called himself the pair’s “investment”.
“You’ve got two business men checking in on their investment! Just making sure that it’s running steady,” he said.
“People call me the cash cow, so they’re just checking in on their cash cow and making sure that it’s still creating that milk!”
Family life
Away from boxing, Eddie lives a very private life.
He is married to the beautiful Chloe, who has been described as his “soulmate”.
Eddie was by her side when the businesswoman opened the doors to her Chloe’s Beauty Bar in Brentwood, alongside TOWIE alumni Chloe Sims in 2014.
The parlour featured regularly on the reality TV show, before closing it down in 2019.
However, Eddie opened up about his family life in The Times in 2019, which includes their daughters Isabella and Sophia.
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Writing his own column, he penned: “I get jumped on by the kids about 6.30. It’s a lovely way to wake up — except on them days when you went to bed at 3 … Work takes me away a lot, so if I’m home, my missus expects me to do my bit.”
Speaking about Chloe and their Essex life, he added: “My missus is from west London and she used to take the mick: ‘Ooh, I’m dating an Essex boy.’ Now? She adores it here. There’s a lot of good working-class people in Essex. And you won’t find no snobbery here, neither.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
