Eddie Hearn offers warning to Ben Shalom about his ‘very unhappy life’
Eddie Hearn offers brutal warning to Ben Shalom about the ‘very unhappy life’ he faces as a boxing promoter and says he ‘doesn’t give a F***’ about the criticism that comes his way
- Hearn called job ‘grim’ and warned Shalom about the ‘lies and abuse’ he is due
- BOXXER came under fire after Frazer Clarke-Fabio Wardley fight fell through
- The storied promoter is currently setting up an August 12 opponent for Joshua
Eddie Hearn has warned Ben Shalom that he is set to face a ‘very unhappy life’ as a boxing promoter after the BOXXER founder claimed defiantly that he was ‘built’ for criticism in a recent interview.
Anthony Joshua’s promoter – who has worked in sports promotion after joining his father Barry’s company MatchRoom in 2000 – offered the pointed message to the 29-year-old Shalom, who became the UK’s youngest licensed boxing promoter six years ago.
In an interview with Seconds Out, Hearn wished his competitor ‘good luck’ but warned him that he had no idea what would lie in wait for him as his career progresses.
Hearn said: ‘What he’s experienced so far is one per cent of what he’s going to experience in terms of the stress, abuse, the lies. I’ve had it all for 10, 12 years. People try and drive you out of the sport.
‘He’s been doing it for two years,’ Hearn added. ‘Try doing 13, 14 (years), the absolute biggest levels of the sport globally, as I said, the stick, the abuse, the lies, the manouvering. It’s grim.
![Eddie Hearn offered a brutal warning to fellow promoter Ben Shalom in a recent interview](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/06/22/15/72419219-12223427-image-a-1_1687444114685.jpg)
Eddie Hearn offered a brutal warning to fellow promoter Ben Shalom in a recent interview
![The BOXXER founder is one of the youngest promoters in the sport after gaining his licence at the age of 23](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/06/22/15/72419175-12223427-image-a-2_1687444566810.jpg)
The BOXXER founder is one of the youngest promoters in the sport after gaining his licence at the age of 23
‘So if he’s feeling it now, he should be worried, because I never felt it, for about seven, or eight years. Maybe ten years. But it’s difficult – I’ve never come out and said “I’m built for it” – but good luck to him. But he ain’t seen the half of it, he ain’t see 90 per cent of it yet.
‘He’s a young man as I was once, you get some people who rides the waves for years and years, like me a little bit, but particulaly (Bob) Arum, and (Frank) Warren, and poeple like that, they’re great survivors, they’re (very) different characters to Ben.
‘I don’t want to be somber a little bit, but you’re going to live a very unhappy life, for the next 10 or 15 years, because that’s just what happens.
‘Maybe very unhappy is harsh – a life of aggravation and very little sleep.’
Hearn was also asked about Shalom’s disapproval of back and forth between promoters, which he claimed was ‘part of the social media world that we live in.’
He continued: ‘No one is interested in Ben Shalom talking about undercard fights, you guys aren’t interested in me talking about undercard fights, you’re interested in me seeing something controversial about someone else, getting the soundbite or clickbait talking about another promotion.
‘It’s never personal, but also you have understand, when you make poor decisions, when you do something wrong, you get the backlash.’
Referencing the backlash that Shalom received after he made the decision to pull Frazer Clarke from his highly anticipated fight against Fabio Wardley in May, Hearn claimed this was ‘minor’ and that Shalom would develop a thick skin against the jibes.
At the time, Hearn posted a tweet that accused BOXXER of being ‘a complete joke and (wasting) our time’ and added that he thought the situation a ‘shambles’.
‘When i was starting out, things happend then that I would feel like were the end of the world. But looking back on it now, it’s completely irrelevant,’ Hearn said.
‘I see from the interview how it’s affected him already. The fact that that’s affected him – it gets worse and worse and worse, and then evenutally, you get to a stage where you could not give a f***.
‘And that’s where I’m at. And that’s particularly where – and although you’ll see him get angry – Warren is, Arum is. Things just bounce off them.
![Hearn referenced recent backlash BOXXER had faced when Shalom pulled Frazer Clarke from his anticipated fight against Fabio Wardley](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/06/22/15/72420023-12223427-image-a-3_1687444615669.jpg)
Hearn referenced recent backlash BOXXER had faced when Shalom pulled Frazer Clarke from his anticipated fight against Fabio Wardley
‘Imagine all the abuse I get, it’s never nice but at the same time, it’s like – ping! Ping! Ping! One might go through, or you get a DM, or someone tries to abuse your family.
‘(But) ultimately, it’s just the game. It’s the game you’re in.’
Hearn is in the midst of organising a new opponent for Joshua on August 12 after claiming his planned opponent Dillian Whyte priced himself out of the conference.
Jarrell Miller’s promoter Dmitriy Salita was believed to be offering his client as the replacement opponent, but Hearn later snuffed out speculation that the pair would meet, stating that he was yet to hear from either Miller or Salita.