For three-and-a-half decades, the Hearn vs Warren family rivalry has been a major part of British boxing.
From heated interview back-and-forths to bitter legal letter exchanges, the enmity between the two warring families has been a constant, which has raged across the sport for so long that many have never known any different.
It is for this reason why, on Thursday, it felt a peculiar scene for reporters invited to a media lunch hosted by Eddie and Frank along with their respective Matchroom and Queensberry teams to promote the ground-breaking 5 vs 5 clash in Riyadh.
The pair spoke and laughed together as friends with Hearn’s right-hand man, Frank Smith (CEO of Matchroom) and Warren’s two sons, George (CEO of Queensberry) and Francis, who now runs his own boxing management company.
Only one of the original key figures from the family feud wasn’t present – Eddie’s father, Barry.
His presence was still felt, though, as Eddie revealed he’d received a call from his father that morning. “The only thing he said was, ‘We’re gonna win, son, aren’t we? We can’t let this guy win.’ That’s how we’ve been as a family for three decades.”
While Warren entered boxing as an unlicensed promoter in the 1970s before becoming licensed in 1980, Barry arrived on the scene in 1987.
Two years later in 1989, when Warren was shot and therefore sidelined, Hearn capitalised on his absence, which truly sparked the rivalry.
“Your dad had just started when I got that shooting,” Frank said to Eddie in a previously-inconceivable joint interview for talkSPORT.com.
“He signed Chris Eubank and I was out of action for about six months or so.
“The rivalry then went on because a couple of fighters jumped ship, as they do. They came back afterwards, but they jumped ship and that established your dad.
“It’s been on and off until you were consistent in the last 15 years.”
Eddie was just a boy at the time of the initial feud and described how there were two forbidden words in his household throughout that period – ‘Frank Warren’.
Little did he know that a couple of decades later in 2010, he himself would enter boxing promotion and take the conflict with the Warrens to new heights.
Speaking about his earlier memories of the rivalry, Hearn told talkSPORT.com: “My dad’s a winner and that was all it was really. It was a rivalry because he wanted to be bigger than Frank and he wanted to do bigger fights than Frank.
“I would see that rivalry up close in the household… I listened to my dad as I sat waiting for him to finish his work at night, arguing with Frank, with Don King, with Bob Arum, and it’s amazing to find myself in this position.”
Asked about picking up the baton and doing battle with Warren himself, Hearn admitted: “I never really looked at it like that.
“Growing up as a kid I was obsessed with boxing. But at that point I never thought, ‘When I’m older I want to be a boxing promoter.’
“If anything I thought I wanted to be a boxer, but I tried that and wasn’t very good at it.”
Discussing Eddie’s entry into boxing, Frank said: “I’ve got to be honest I didn’t think about it, I didn’t know him, I only knew his dad.
“His dad and I were partners in snooker with IMG when we did the breakaway snooker tournament, ITV got us together.
“But it was competition, he came in and like we all do, he came in and said things. We’re all passionate about it. Especially if you’re a young man, you’re out there trying to establish yourself and things are said.”
While Frank and Barry occasionally did business together during the 1980s and 1990s, Frank and Eddie had never even met or spoken to one another until last year.
What had developed into a bitter 13-year feud ended when HE Turki Alalshikh (chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority) entered the sport.
The Saudi boxing chief responsible for the relocating of many of boxing’s major events to Riyadh with huge purses realised the waves that were made by bringing the pair together to work on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ show headlined by Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder in December.
While boxing fans were thrilled to see AJ and Wilder together at a press conference, they were equally as amazed by a glimpse of the rival promoters shaking hands for the first time.
At their next press conference together, Alalshikh made a brief speech in which he announced that Hearn and Warren would stage this 5 vs 5 show together.
Incredibly, this was also breaking news to both of them at the time.
“He didn’t put the idea to us, he just announced it,” Warren laughed.
Hearn continued: “I just think he saw when we came together at the first Day of Reckoning press conference – there was a handshake on stage, everyone was screenshotting it, and he thought, ‘This is a really cool story.’
“I think he’s got an ambition and a desire in boxing to kind of break boundaries, but also mend and build bridges between people.
“So he stood up at that presser and said, ‘I will also do Matchroom vs Queensberry, 5 vs 5, it’s on.’ And we both sort of went, ‘Okay, done.'”
At this point George Warren added: “The reality is His Excellency is smart.
“If you think back to that Day of Reckoning press conference, that was the story. If you think of the size of that card and how big it was, the biggest story for the press was that.”
From there, the two families have had no choice but to work together.
Surprisingly to both though, they’ve actually enjoyed it.
“I think one thing we’ve realised is we’re all quite similar really as people and as a family,” Hearn said.
“We’re just very competitive and we don’t like to lose. We like to speak our minds and we like to win.”
Warren agreed: “When you look at it all, I’ve got a lot of respect for him, what he does and his work ethic. He’s obviously passionate and knows his boxing. It’s all working out.
“When we have private talks about how it is, not just in front of the press, I think we’re on the same mindset of where we’re all going with this.
“My son George Warren, Frank Smith and so forth, I think it’s really good for all of us.
“It never happened years ago, but it wasn’t meant to happen then. It’s happening now and the fact it’s happening now is brilliant for everyone involved.
“And it’s fun, we’re having a lot of fun.”
On Saturday night, the Hearn vs Warren rivalry will briefly reignite as their fighters clash in the 5 vs 5.
However, in the long-run the newfound positive relationship between the pair promises a bright future for British boxing.
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News Summary:
- Hearn vs Warren is a 35-year rivalry which has defined British boxing, now warring families have put differences aside in new Saudi world
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