‘What do you mean we can't?': Eddie Hearn on Times Square, Saudi billions and boxing's new reality

The Guardian

02-05-2025

As workers tighten bolts on a steel ring platform beneath the glare of LED billboards in Times Square on a sun-splashed Thursday afternoon, Eddie Hearn is still wrapping his head around the reality of what he's helped build.
'It actually is going to happen,' he says, sounding slightly astonished. 'Up until about two weeks ago, I thought: this isn't happening. And now we're 24 hours away.'
Friday night's invite-only boxing card – headlined by Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney and Teófimo López – will unfold in the heart of midtown Manhattan, sealed behind 10-foot-high chain-link fencing and swarming with security teams. Just steps away, hot dog vendors bark over traffic and ambulance sirens. The Naked Cowboy strums his guitar. Tourists snap selfies. Nearby, counter-terrorist units wheel away trash bins as a precaution. And inside that footprint, one of the sport's most surreal new realities is taking shape.
'Imagine the fascination,' Hearn says. 'Imagine the viewership. Closing down Times Square – it's iconic. In the normal world of promotion, you'd be leaving 10 million on the floor. But this is different.'
Different is one way to describe it. The event – staged by The Ring magazine, recently acquired by Saudi Arabia's boxing magnate Turki al-Sheikh – is the latest in a series of high-concept, deep-pocketed and highly curated boxing showcases. While the visuals promise a cinematic backdrop without precedent, the live audience will be vanishingly small. 'It's got the feel of Covid,' Hearn notes, recalling the empty-arena shows of 2020. 'Some fighters underperformed in that environment. I think we'll see some upsets.'
The silver-tongued promoter is effusive in his praise of Al-Sheikh, often referred to as 'His Excellency', whose fingerprints have been on nearly every major boxing event in the last 18 months. Hearn points to Al-Sheikh's 'relentlessness' and obsessive problem-solving as the reason why fights long thought impossible – Fury v Usyk, Joshua v Ngannou, Beterbiev v Bivol – have now been made reality. 'Once he has that vision, it's happening. It's not, 'We can't do it because–',' he says. 'It's, 'What do you mean we can't? Let's go again.''
Hearn's role in the Times Square project is a curious one. As Matchroom Boxing's frontman, he's long been known as one of boxing's most visible traditional promoters. But in this new Saudi-led chapter, his job has changed. 'We were tasked with running the event on the ground, being the lead promoter,' he says. 'The team has done an amazing job. But there's been so many hurdles – everything from permits, to indemnity, to getting fighters changed on the night.'
None of it, he made clear, would have happened without Al-Sheikh. 'People sometimes criticize when we talk so positively about him,' Hearn says. 'But it's just the truth. You're solving so many short-term problems – and most of the time you don't get over them. But he just keeps going.'
That persistence, Hearn admits, has taught him something. 'I've learned a lot from the vision,' he says. 'Some of the stuff I thought was the worst idea ever. Then it happens, and I go: 'That was brilliant.''
He cites the time Al-Sheikh insisted on using celebrity lookalikes as ring card carriers for last week's show at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. 'I thought: 'This is the worst idea I've ever seen.' By the end of the night, it's gone completely viral.'
Hearn is aware that not everyone in boxing sees this new era as visionary. Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of sportswashing, using lavish fight cards to rebrand the kingdom's global image while distracting from its human rights record. But the questions go beyond symbolism. Al-Sheikh is a close ally of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and head of the kingdom's General Entertainment Authority, a body tied to the state's top-down soft power strategy.
A recent investigation by the Athletic revealed that Al-Sheikh's growing profile in boxing stands in sharp contrast to his lesser-known domestic role –one marked by reported abuses. Interviews with dozens of sources described a man who blends celebrity flamboyance with close proximity to repression. According to former detainees and Saudi dissidents, dozens have been imprisoned for criticizing Al-Sheikh's policies, with one Riyadh jail wing informally dubbed 'the Tutu Wing, after his nickname.
There are verified cases, court records show, of social media users being arrested and allegedly abused after criticizing Al-Sheikh – including one man reportedly abducted by masked security agents, blindfolded and slapped by Al-Sheikh in person before being dumped on the side of a highway.
Human rights groups have long accused Saudi Arabia of using high-profile sports events to deflect attention from internal repression. In one of the more alarming anecdotes from the Athletic's reporting, a member of Al-Sheikh's entourage at a recent heavyweight title fight was identified as a man wanted by the FBI for allegedly spying on dissidents inside Twitter.
Asked directly whether there are ethical red lines on who should fund or control the sport, Hearn was careful but direct: 'Every country has its issues. I think we're one of them. But I've never seen anything but positive come from sport being there.'
Has he ever been asked to sign a non-disparagement clauses or NDA on a Saudi show?
'Never,' he replies, flatly.
Does he feel pressure to defer to Al-Sheikh on matchmaking?
'We represent over 100 fighters,' Hearn says. 'We make decisions for them based on what's best for their careers. There've been plenty of times where His Excellency offered us a fight and we said no – wrong weight class, wrong timing. But generally, the opportunities have been very good. Life-changing.'
That power – the ability to shape cards, fund events, control promotional narratives, and now media via The Ring, an American boxing publication that has been around since 1922 — has many in the sport wondering where the lines are. Or whether any remain.
But he also acknowledges the value of entertainment – and of disruption. 'Boxing gets stale,' Hearn says. 'The same weigh-ins. The same press conferences. The same look and feel. You've got to keep evolving. And he's torn the script up.' For example, it's one of boxing's worst kept secrets that Al-Sheikh's next scheme involves staging a fight on Alcatraz Island. As audacious as it sounds, you'd be brave to bet against it.
Hearn doesn't think Saudi's involvement means the end of boxing's traditional fanbases, either. 'We did 96,000 for Joshua v Dubois at Wembley,' he pointed out. 'We did 65,000 last week for Benn v Eubank. Boxing isn't leaving anywhere. It's growing.'
He disagrees with fellow UK-based promoter Ben Shalom's recent claim that women's boxing has suffered in the Saudi era. 'There's only been one female [world title] fight there so far,' Hearn says. 'But women's boxing is cyclical, like everything. The top end is strong. The middle's struggling a bit. That's the same in men's boxing too.'
As for his own future, Hearn won't deny he's been tempted to walk away. 'It's the worst business in the world,' he said. 'But it's the most addictive. I've loved it since I was eight years old. And I love seeing people change their lives through boxing.'
On Friday night, under the brilliant lights of Times Square and the watchful eye of Al-Sheikh, another chapter of that transformation will play out. Whether it marks a renaissance or a reckoning depends on whom you ask – but to Hearn, the answer is already clear. 'You have to think differently now,' he said. 'You have to be brave. This isn't the normal world of promotion anymore. This is something else entirely.'