Young Eddie Hearn was born into a family,
obviously, with my mum and my dad, Barry.
They were from a very, very humble background.
Parents were. My dad’s dad drove a bus around London
and they lived in a small,
very small house, council house,
which is kind of provided by the government.
He was a working class guy.
He actually worked very hard at school,
became a chartered accountant.
So he’s a financial genius,
and that’s something that he lives and dies by within the business.
As I was born, he started making money.
He got into sport, snooker first of all,
and then eventually boxing.
As I came into the world, he started making a lot of money.
So I grew up pretty well, but with a real working class mentality.
Like he was very strict on me
and strict on me through sports more than anything.
So he used sport and a competition within sport to educate me.
So all I did as a kid was play sport.
All I did as a kid would. Would compete against him.
Right. And we were brutal against each other in every sport,
you know, and although we had money,
he would always educate me that you get given nothing
and you have to work like a dog, basically.
And, yeah,
that’s probably given me my work ethic today.
When he started promoting boxing,
I was 8 years old. And from that day,
that night, I went to all the Shows from 8 years old,
you know, watching greats like Nazim Ahmed,
who he promoted, Lennox Lewis.
Yeah, Chris Eubank,
Nigel Ben, Frank Bruno.
I mean, he promoted everybody of the great British fighters.
And I spent a lot of my early years in those changing rooms,
carrying belts out. And I was the annoying kid,
but I was like. I was Barry Hern’s son.
No one really knew my name.
I was just Barry’s son, you know?
Which I was fine with because my dad was my hero.
But, like,
deep inside, the competitive instinct,
I guess,
during those years was how do I actually make something of myself?
Like I wanted to. If I had a choice,
I would like to be an athlete.
Cricket, so whatever.
But I wasn’t good enough. Over the years, 14,
15, 16,
probably when I look back,
probably wasn’t. Not.
Not the nicest kid. I always had a good heart,
but I was very flash, you know,
you imagine I’m flying around the world
and I’m in Vegas for NAS against Barrera now
with my kids. It’s very difficult when you do have money
and you do wanna spoil your kids,
to maintain that working class mentality.
That’s where he did such a good job.
Because I work harder than every anybody in my industry.