To those up in boxing’s peanut gallery who can’t quite wrap their heads around why Frank Warren continues to feud with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, the veteran promoter and head of Queensberry Promotions offered a simple reason that might help clarify matters:
It’s a competition, dummy.
“We’re competitive but so are Sky and so are BT, so are ITV and so are BBC, so are Virgin Atlantic and so are BA, so are Ryanair and so are EasyJet,” Warren told Boxing News. “That’s the world. Grow up everybody, what do you think this is?
“We are rivals in a small market but we’re no different to any other industry. Look at football clubs, the way they fight over players and so forth, what’s different? Sometimes I find it quite pathetic people even think that way. What do they think we’re going to do, all hold hands there and have some crumpets and teacakes? It’s not like that. We’re rivals in a very competitive industry.”
A few weeks ago Warren, in a move that titillated the British boxing scene, reportedly reached out to Hearn, in an attempt to work on future shows together. The two promoters have been engaged in a de facto cold war for close to a decade. But as cutthroat as their competitive spirits are, Warren wants to make it clear, despite whatever narrative has been peddled in the past, that he himself is willing to play ball. Hearn? Not so much, he thinks.
“I won’t keep chasing people,” Warren said of his recent olive branch to Hearn. “I put it out there. I picked up the phone, I initiated the conversation, he called me back, we exchanged a couple of brief emails, I want to get this meeting on. But I’m not sitting around waiting for it to happen. I want it to happen. I can’t do anymore than that. There’s willing on Queensberry’s side to make some of these fights.”
In the Boxing News interview, Warren went on to state that more of his fighters have appeared on Matchroom cards “than the other way around.”
“The only ones (Matchroom-promoted fighters) that have appeared on my shows have been when we’ve won the purse bids – like Lee Selby, like Kid Galahad, like John Ryder,” Warren said.
But as far as a true collaboration goes, Warren says they need to have a meeting first. Until then, everything else is hogwash.