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Eddie Hearn: Britain is the envy of the boxing world... that's why conquering America is our next move

King of the manor: boxing promoter Eddie Hearn outside the Matchroom HQ in Essex
King of the manor: boxing promoter Eddie Hearn outside the Matchroom HQ in Essex

Eddie Hearn is talking excitedly at his grand Essex HQ about his plans to invade American boxing from a new office near Wall Street.

His father, Barry, meanwhile, has been chuckling and reminiscing.

“He used to be running around this place in shorts as a toddler when it was our family home,” Hearn Sr recalls. “Now look at him. He’s even taken over my old office.”

A frantic 12 days are looming for the Hearn family’s Matchroom boxing empire. A week on Saturday, 78,000 people will pour into the Principality Stadium in Cardiff to watch Anthony Joshua continue his quest to become the undisputed heavyweight world champion against Joseph Parker.

A week earlier this Saturday, Dillian Whyte, the fighter against whom Joshua catapulted himself to national prominence in 2015, will meet the former Sydney bouncer, Lucas Browne, at the 02 Arena in London. It could be a raw, old-fashioned kind of scrap and 8,000 tickets have been sold.

When Hearn Jr, who has hugely expanded the fight business begun by his dad in the 1990s, considers these sales figures and the forthcoming sell-out nights involving Amir Khan, David Haye and Tony Bellew, he insists: “Premier League football apart, boxing is probably the hottest sport in the country right now.

“We’re spoiled. There are so many big occasions. Okay, sometimes you have to pinch yourself and ask — are we really doing another near-80,000 event for AJ? But there is so much boxing everywhere and it is not just Sky TV showing it. There’s BT, ITV and Channel 5, too.

“It is all there from the big crowds at the big nights to the kids going into the grass-root gyms and saying, ‘I want to be like AJ.’

“We are the envy of the boxing world. We fill stadiums and arenas across the sport and the atmospheres are great.

“You can go to a show in America and half the people in the place don’t even know who is boxing. It’s just something put on for TV coverage, not an event and an occasion in itself like we have here. That’s why our next move is into the USA. We’re opening an office in Manhattan in May. But we won’t take our eye off the ball here.

“Perhaps it will be hard to sell any more tickets than we are at the moment. But we mustn’t be complacent.”

Joshua and Hearn, 38, are not the only show in town in this thriving era for the British fight game.

On April 14, the newly-rejuvented WBO middleweight champion from Hertfordshire, Billy Joe Saunders, is promising a rip-roaring night against Martin Murray, also at the 02 Arena.

Under the promotional banner of Frank Warren, Saunders may be a serious contender to meet the winner of the forthcoming rematch in Las Vegas between the superstar pair Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.

Meanwhile, Tyson Fury, the former world heavyweight champion, is succeeding in his quest to rejoin the fray if the latest pictures of his newly slimmed frame at work in the gym are reliable evidence.