Page 1 of 3

What really happened with Mike Tyson? What is you biggest regret? Promoter Frank Warren answers your questions

This article was originally published in the August 13 issue of Boxing News magazine

How hard is it to organise a big fight between fighters from the camps of rival promoters?

@DaveJBrooks84, Twitter

Invariably they will happen and over the years they have happened. One that didn’t happen, that I wasn’t happy about, was Joe Calzaghe against Carl Froch. That was down to Froch at the time, who was a free agent, and basically didn’t want to fight Joe. Most of the time the business calls for them to happen, whether it’s a purse bid situation or someone has a title and someone becomes mandatory, which is why I think governing bodies are so important because that ensures that the champion will defend his title.

Do you think you will work with Eddie Hearn in the future?

Paul Turner, Facebook

When you say work with him, I’m not going to work with him. Many years ago I worked with his father [Barry Hearn]. I’ve had fighters [contracted to Queensberry] work on his [Matchroom] shows and I don’t think he’s had any fighters, to my knowledge, fight on my shows. I really don’t think that has happened. We’ve put fighters in Prizefighter, etc.

Has Eddie Hearn been good for boxing?

Ross Widdup, Facebook

Let’s not get it wrong, what has been good for boxing is Eddie Hearn AND his dad. Behind the scenes, if you speak to certain fighters, they’ll tell you that they dealt only with the dad. Maybe that’s because they couldn’t get what they wanted from the son, I don’t know. But it’s Sky Sports that are good for boxing, and that’s what you’ve got to look at; Sky were pulling out of the sport when I walked away [to set up BoxNation]. But they’ve got back into it, and have made all the money [for boxing] available to Matchroom and that’s been great for the British fighters. I have no problem with competition. Don’t forget I was the one that started out suffering from competition because when I started out there was just BBC. ITV didn’t show domestic boxing so there were only two channels and they were tied up with Mickey Duff. Nobody had it worse than I did. It was a monopoly.

Do you feel let down to have missed out on the Wladimir Klitschko-Tyson Fury showdown and were you planning to put in a bid to stage the contest?

@rocco_619, Twitter

It’s quite complicated, and there are things going on at the moment. What I feel let down by is peoples’ word. That’s the best way I can put it at this stage but I do feel let down by people who gave me their word which unfortunately they didn’t keep.

Click below for part two