How is lockdown treating you?
Okay. Iโve been trying to keep myself busy, reading, watching a bit of television and listening to music. Iโve been catching up with people I havenโt spoken to for ages but, to be completely honest, Iโve been bored out of my brains.
There have been reports on ESPN that talks are underway between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua yet the talks are just between MTK Global and Eddie Hearn due to a โriftโ between you and Eddie. How true is that?
There are no negotiations going on. Iโll tell you how it is. Our side [Team Fury] is Queensberry, Top Rank who are his joint promoter in America and we promote everywhere else, and MTK who act as advisors and managers for Tyson. We all have our respective roles. Iโve never had any dealings with Eddie Hearn and MTK do quite a bit with him, so theyโve been talking to him on behalf of us, and Iโve been talking to a couple of countries about where to put the fight on, on behalf of our side, so thatโs where we are. There is an NDA [non-disclosure agreement] being signed with one particular territory which Matchroom have signed, weโve signed, MTK have signed and has been signed by us on behalf of Top Rank. I canโt comment further on that at the moment. There are no negotiations for a fight to take place because thereโs been no offer made yet. Until an offer is made, thereโs nothing to negotiate. Whatever happens, all parties concerned have to be agreeable to it. The fact is, where we are now, we have a contractual commitment for Tyson to fight the third fight with Deontay Wilder and Joshua has a contractual commitment with Kubrat Pulev. Thatโs the reality. All the stuff that [Eddie] Hearn has been spouting off about and so forth is all irrelevant because there arenโt any negotiations because thereโs nothing to negotiate about because thereโs no offer.
So thereโs been no discussions with, for example, Deontay Wilderโs team about a figure to step aside to allow Fury to fight Joshua?
No. One-hundred per cent no. All this other stuff, itโs just Hearn coming out with some bulls**t. But if heโs not saying something, heโs not being heard.
How difficult has it been to ensure that interest in boxing remains during this period of lockdown and is ready to relaunch once itโs over?
Thatโs the big problem weโre faced with at the moment. Iโve had quite a few conversations with Robert Smith at the Board and Iโve told him we have to keep our sport relevant. There has been lots of talk about football taking place and coming back behind closed doors, motor racing and horse racing too. We [boxing] need to be in there because if weโre not, weโll be in the slipstream. What weโre going to get when this all does eventually ease off will be a new world. What we thought was normal before will not be normal then. Everything will change, unless you can inoculate 66-million people. So unless that happens, there will be some serious modifications to what we all do. Sport will be behind closed doors and weโve got to make sure weโre up and running. Robert Smith and I have done quite a lot of detailed work on what it takes to run a show โ itโs not just a case of โhereโs a date we restartโ and everyone piles in to somewhere and we film it. Weโve got a lot of logistical problems. For example, people are going to have to be tested. And once youโve tested them, you canโt then go home or into a gym with a load of people in it โ and thatโs if the government allow gyms to open. Thereโs a risk theyโll go away and catch it and then come back the next day and give it to everybody else. So the fighters will have to be tested and then put in isolation for two weeks. That will be the same for the four-round and six-round fighters on both sides of the card. For all those fighters, youโre going to need gym facilities they can access that have to be cleaned after use. How are they going to spar? The sparring partners will all need to be tested too. Come the week of the fight youโll have to lock the referee down. The trainers, too, will have to be locked down. So youโre going to have a period where youโre going to be testing people regularly, that equipment is sterile because there will be no social distancing as far as the athletes are concerned in the fight. You canโt have a fighter bringing an entourage. Thatโs gone. For a main event, it will be a fighter, their trainer and their cutman, and that will be it. Everything will have to be done to a minimum.
Then further problems arise with the TV and media crews?
Of course. If youโre going to film it away from a TV studio, youโre going to have put an OB [Outside Broadcast] unit down. Inside one of those trucks, there ainโt no social distancing. Thatโs what you have to consider. Thereโs so many sides to it, everything needs to be looked at. Weโve done a tremendous amount of research so we know where we are and what we need to do to move forward and do these things. But, if you donโt do them, if anybody cheats and thinks they can be wise guys, weโre all in trouble. And we know that certain people in boxing will break the rules and cut corners. Everyone has got to get this right. Youโre not going to have lots of shows to start with. Iโve seen a load of nonsense about venues being hard to come by. Thatโs not going to be a problem. You can go and get as many venues as you like this year because all the [music] concerts have been pushed back 12 months anyway. Iโve got friends in the music industry, I know whatโs going on and theyโre just pushing their shows back. The only people who can promote behind closed doors are those who have TV deals because youโre not going to get any income from the public โ thatโs gone before we start. Youโre not going to get people promoting at York Hall without TV and without a crowd. Why would you?
So what is the short-term solution for promoters?
Weโre going to put shows on but theyโll be at a certain level to start with and to see how that goes. Which means it will likely be Matchroom and ourselves, and MTK have that Golden Contract, who are in a position to put on shows and that will be it. Iโd be surprised if anyone else was doing it. Thatโs not going to be strain on any [government] resources but we can only do this when the government says itโs safe to do so. People need to know that doctors, ambulances and paramedics are paid for by the promoters, not the Board of Control, not the National Health Service, thatโs our cost. The only time the NHS are involved is when, God forbid, a boxer gets seriously injured and is taken to a neurological unit. Thankfully, that is a very rare scenario.
Youโre more experienced than the vast majority. How fearful are you about boxingโs long-term future?
My main concern is that the two biggest sports TV businesses in this country are BT and Sky. Theyโre subscription-driven models, both of them. At the moment, theyโre not showing sport so thereโs no subscriptions or money coming in. When sport returns, thereโs going to be very little money unless youโve got a contract. Iโve been down this road before; the major sport that drives these subscription channels is football so theyโll be looking to keep the football going at the detriment of other sports. The other sports will suffer and weโve got to make sure that boxing doesnโt become a casualty of that. So we have to make sure we are up there and ready to go when they give the green light. If people are not watching boxing, then the question, โwhat do we need boxing for?โ, will be asked. At the moment we have to be realistic. Weโre not going to be putting on Daniel Dubois versus Joe Joyce behind closed doors. Weโll start with British title level fights behind closed doors and then we hope the situation will change.
How do you cope with the financial pressure of putting on shows behind closed doors?
All weโre going to do is lose money but weโve got to do it: One, to ensure the sport remains relevant and, two, weโve got to make sure the fighters are getting paid. Not every fighter is Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua. If fighters have got no dough coming in, theyโre going to have to try and get a job in a very bad employment market. These are tough times for everybody. Magazines are closing. Retailers are closing. Airlines are going bust. This is the world we are in now, so the sport has to get moving. The alternative, with no live shows, is unthinkable. We have to get the sport moving. I see Hearn is talking about staging Dillian Whyte-Alexander Povetkin. Is that really worthy of pay-per-view? And Iโm not just saying that in a โus and themโ way. But irrespective of that, imagine youโre a paying subscriber to Sky Sports, are you then going to be happy to pay a pay-per-view fee on top after months of zero live sport? Thatโs how I see it. There are dangers in these strange times that we are heading into.
With that in mind, how do you keep fighters like Daniel Dubois happy if fights behind closed doors wonโt pay?
Thatโs another issue. We have to wait and see what the government says at the weekend [in regard to easing lockdown restrictions]. We need to know what is allowed and what isnโt before we can make plans to reschedule it [Dubois-Joyce]. We moved that show back from April to July because everyone said it would be three months before everything came back. We now know how thatโs going to be. But regarding fighters like Daniel, Josh Taylor and Carl Frampton? Letโs look at it from Carlโs perspective โ heโs a good ticket-seller but all that revenue is dead. You canโt make it up โ where are you going to get it from? Even if you did go pay-per-view with a fight you werenโt originally intending to go pay-per-view with, in the hope of making extra revenue, youโre not going to be able to charge for pay-per-view what you charge for a ticket. That would be greedy and it wouldnโt work. These are challenging times for everyone. Weโre all going to be chasing sponsorship and advertising revenues that at the moment arenโt there. Weโve got to be innovative and, most important of all, keep boxing between all of us. Weโve got to be sensible and not greedy and stupid. Greed and stupidity is the last thing we need. The industry has to be sensible and accept there are sacrifices for everyone.
There was some live boxing in Nicaragua recently. Some parts of America maybe in a position to stage boxing before the UK. Is there scope to take your fighters abroad?
Again, it depends where it is safe to take them. In an ideal world youโd say letโs put the fights on in New Zealand but then youโve got a terrible time difference and so forth. Itโs not just taking the fighters, itโs taking everything over there, itโs a very expensive exercise, itโs got to work. At the end of the day, weโve got to make the best out of what we can do. At the beginning, it is our intention to show one televised show a week. Thatโs what weโd like to do and then we take it from there.