Eddie Hearn says that Anthony Joshua’s decision to sign a promotional deal that ties him to Matchroom for the rest of his career is “massive” for his business. 

Joshua’s promotional deal with Matchroom expired on Sunday and, while Hearn says he would have been happy to agree a deal by a handshake, he said it was important to get a new contract in place. He also pointed out that it was unusual for a star the size of the WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight champion to go through their entire career with just one promoter. 

“Can you name a fighter of his magnitude that has stayed with a promoter from their debut until the day they retired?” Hearn said. “Me and AJ were joking about it today. Floyd? No. Oscar De La Hoya? No. Tyson? No. Holyfield? No. Lennox? No. 

“There are many more, but it is very unusual. Even Bellew, Froch, Calzaghe, Hatton. It is a real honour for us and important to go through that whole process.  

“The backdrop today said ‘Beginning, Middle, Future’, I feel we are still in the middle. Although he is coming up to 32, he is in his prime and still for five or six years, maybe. So that is ten or 12 fights. That’s a lot of fights and there is a lot to do.” 

The announcement was made just ahead of the media workouts for Joshua’s title defense against Oleksandr Usyk, but Hearn said he was not nervous about the deal being done, despite speculation that Joshua might be targeted by others after Hearn’s split with longtime broadcaster Sky Sports. Joshua’s own deal with Sky Sports ends after this Saturday’s fight. 

“This is the fourth contract he has signed and everyone you get less nervous about when it is about to expire,” Hearn said. “The previous contract expired on Sunday. In the normal position with a fighter of this magnitude, we would have been flapping, but this new deal is something that we have been working on for three months and it was important to get it done before this fight. 

“For our business it is hugely important, because we have worked together so well over time. He is an important part of our business and he is a very close person to us as a family.  

“I believe we could have had a handshake deal that would have lasted forever, but to cement it in writing for the business is massive. He is the biggest star in British boxing, arguably the biggest star in world boxing, so it is a major day for Matchroom. 

“He is our ambassador, when he sits up there and says ‘this is the best place for me to be, Matchroom are the best promotional outfit in the world’, there are no better credentials for us for young fighters to see. The difficulty with AJ is, a lot of fighters come from somewhere else. A lot of fighters will join us from another promoter and say ‘it’s much better here’, but he has always been with us, so he doesn’t know anything else, so he maybe things this is how everybody promotes. No they don’t.” 

Hearn believes a reason why the deal was straightforward is that the pair have never had a row. 

“Me and him, or Matchroom and AJ, have never had one argument,” Hearn said. “Not even a heated conversation. I’m sure there were times when he thought ‘I don’t agree with that’ and vice versa. But we’ve never had a fallout and he is so good to work with because he takes everything on, he is never going to be a yes man, he will make the final decision, he will take in the opinions of everyone he cares about, but it is his decision. 

“There are going to be ups and downs. It is a tough fight on Saturday, anything could happen. There are five or six years and having the biggest star in world boxing is massive for our business.” 

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.