Turki Alalshikh managed to get two of boxing’s most famous promoters to put aside a lengthy family feud after just a few short meetings.
Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren are the top dogs in Britain when it comes to boxing, but had never so much as met each other amid a bitter rivalry. Eddie’s father Barry was a long-time rival of Warren’s, which carried over to his son when he took over Matchroom Boxing.
Now, the pair appear to be best of pals, and have even put on head-to-head promotional shows including the famous 5v5.
Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn had bitter family feud
For years, fights would fall by the wayside as Warren’s Queensberry Promotions refused to work with Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. The pair were never so much as in the same room together, and managed to skip a planned meeting that had been organised before the coronavirus pandemic.
The rivalry dates back to the 80s, when a young Hearn would hear his father arguing with Warren on the phone in their family home. When the Queensberry boss was shot in 1989, Barry Hearn then swooped in and signed a number of major names to Matchroom amid the uncertainty.
Since then, tensions continued to build as the two camps vied for supremacy in the UK market. Eddie Hearn would meet with Frank’s sons George and Francis Warren, but major fights such as Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury managed to fall apart in the meantime.
Turki Alalshikh details how he got Hearn and Warren into one room
Towards the end of last year, though, the feud appeared to thaw after the introduction of Turki Alalshikh. The head of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia brought major money to the table, and dragged the two into a meeting.
From there, they have become quite friendly, with Hearn telling the BBC: “It took someone with a bit of sense to bang our heads together and say ‘guys we can do something really special’. There are a lot of similarities with the families.
“We’re both from working class backgrounds. Frank started well doing in business, then his son George came through in a similar upbringing to me and we both made it in the sport.”
And in a recent interview with IFL TV, Alalshikh noted that the pair were able to put their differences aside for the sake of business.
“It did not take me too long,” he told host Colm McGuigan during the recent re-launch of The Ring Magazine. “They are smart and they are businessmen and there is no reason to have any problem.”