EDDIE MAGUIRE
They say a week is a long time in politics (and even this weekend has been pretty long, to say the least), but a day is even longer in sport, especially when backroom deals are being made.
I'd been keeping a boxing promoter movie concept in my rainy drawer for a while now, but when news broke last week that UK promoter Eddie Hearn had his second most lucrative fighter snatched by rivals Zeffa Boxing (courtesy of UFC CEO Dana White and Saudi’s Turki Alalshikh), I considered (at least for now) that reality might have usurped my own basic idea, which was more along the lines of Jerry Maguire meets King Lear (actually, that's pretty good).
The betrayal of Eddie Hearn by controversial boxer Conor Benn (son of Nigel 'The Dark Destroyer' Benn) has perhaps been overstated, but it makes good copy for thirsty sports writers and commentators who have found boxing, in particular, a bit of a desert lately when it comes to insider gossip. Hearn has reason to feel especially aggrieved, as he stuck with Benn through a notorious doping scandal involving the ingestion of some tampered eggs for a couple of years before returning his golden goose back to market for a Fight of the Year showdown with Chris Eubank Jr.
While purists of the noble art of boxing don't hold much truck with all the backroom shenanigans, for me it's as much a part of the sport as the fights in the ring. Maybe that is partly due to watching a lot of old hard-boiled movies from the 40s and 50s, where a dodgy promoter, a fighter, and a whole gallery of gargoyle-looking gangsters all combine to make a compelling psychodrama about a fix, a betrayal, and a noir-like love interest.
A lot of what makes the current White/Sheikh/Hearn story compelling is that it is a territorial competition to see who can own the entire sport itself. Judging by the amount of money Dana White and Turki Alalshikh are throwing around, it was looking like it would be an easy first-round TKO against both Hearn and his domestic rival Frank Warren ('The Godfather'), who is apparently suing White and Alalshikh for a billion dollars.
That is, until World War 3 broke out this weekend and suddenly prospects in the Middle East for major sporting events looked considerably less secure. Though, judging by the rapid nature of 'events' these days, it might be forgotten next week — or we'll all be living through the 21st-century version of Kingdom of Heaven.
What makes me laugh about both Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren is their naivety in letting Turki (representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) learn all their promotional secrets for a couple of years before he turned his back on them both and teamed up with the biggest fight promoter on the planet, Dana White. Essentially Hearn and Warren have had their trousers pulled down in public and are now standing fully exposed, having to consider the very real possibility that any one of their top fighters might be stolen from them by White and Alalshikh.
The paranoia will be off the chart for Matchroom Boxing (Hearn's outfit) and Queensberry Promotions (Warren's company), just like El Mencho and the Mexican cartels last weekend.
Of course, there's been the laughable argument by some of the old heads at TalkSport about a fighter's loyalty to his promoter versus an opportunity to gain generational wealth, assuming that somehow everyone on the UK side is upfront and squeaky clean with their operations.
All I can say to that is…
Do me a favour! (said in Guy Ritchie Cockney)
This isn't Jerry Maguire, and as Mickey Duff wisely once observed about the business side of boxing, "If you want loyalty, go out and buy a dog."
In the meantime, depending on how things proceed with this battle for the bouts, I might just dust off my old boxing script from the shelf.