ATLANTIC CITY \u2013 If Atlantic City will forever be remembered by those around him as where Jaron \u201cBoots\u201d Ennis came of age, for his promoter, Eddie Hearn, it remains where he gained his first world champion.<\/p>\n
When Darren Barker, to whom Hearn remains close, climbed off of the canvas to outpoint Australia\u2019s Daniel Geale and win the IBF middleweight title, Hearn had for the first time taken a fighter to world level and on to a sanctioning body title.<\/p>\n
Carl Froch, by then, had beaten Lucien Bute to start his second reign as a super-middleweight champion, but Matchroom inherited Froch when he already possessed a title, and when he also remained committed to the Super Six.<\/p>\n
Twelve years on Barker and Froch are retired and Hearn and Matchroom are considerably more powerful and influential. In victory over Eimantas Stanionis on Saturday Ennis established himself among the world\u2019s very finest fighters; Shakur Stevenson and Richardson Hitchins, further Matchroom fighters and world champions from America, were ringside; Barry Hearn, whose shadow for so long loomed over Eddie, was nowhere to be seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst we brought him here to fight Sergio Martinez, and then we brought him back to fight Daniel Geale,\u201d Hearn said of Barker. \u201cMartinez was at the Boardwalk Hall; Geale was at The Revel [Resort], up the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s weird [to be back]. I\u2019ve actually come back since with Gavin Rees against [Adrien] Broner, [and] Lee Purdy against Devon Alexander, but this is obviously the first big fight. I remember being there for Froch-[Andre] Ward and it was more than half-empty, and that was the final of the Super Six, and I just remember looking around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re reading stuff and talking about the fighters that have boxed there and stuff like that, I\u2019m pretty proud to fill it up, because we are a British promotional company, and we\u2019ve got people coming up to us here who work for Visit Atlantic City and the venue, [saying] \u2018I just want to say thanks \u2013 this is massive for us\u2019. What a chance to start bringing boxing back here regularly. It\u2019s a strange place in the respect of it\u2019s empty, and then all of a sudden, bang \u2013 Friday night, Saturday night particularly, the place is wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took a punt leaving Philadelphia, \u2018cause we\u2019d done 14,000 and 12,000 [strong crowds]. \u2018Boots\u2019 was, \u2018We\u2019ve been there twice in six months \u2013 we should switch it up\u2019. It was a punt coming down here \u2013 it\u2019s paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Barker defeated Geale in 2013 Ennis was in his teens and Floyd Mayweather \u2013 who once excelled at the Boardwalk Hall in victory over Arturo Gatti \u2013 was the world\u2019s leading welterweight. Ennis\u2019 mature performance throughout the course of six one-sided rounds with Stanionis means that in 2025 he has succeeded in that position Terence Crawford, who succeeded Mayweather. In the years between then and his signing a promotional agreement with Matchroom in 2024, his name was prominent on a shortlist of fighters Hearn targeted when in 2018 agreeing a broadcast deal with DAZN to expand into the US.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Devin] Haney; Shakur Stevenson; [Edgar] Berlanga [were other names on that shortlist],\u201d he said. \u201cAround that time [Ennis] was boxing on ShoBox \u2013 so was Devin. They were like the future. It was really more like 2021, 2022, where I\u2019m looking at Ennis going, \u2018Fucking hell\u2026\u2019. We tried to sign him three or four times.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unrecognizable [from when Barker beat Geale]. We had three people working [for Matchroom]. It was me, John Wish [Wischusen, then matchmaker], and Frank [Smith, chief executive in 2025]. We\u2019ve got 60 people now, globally, just working on the boxing. It\u2019s a success story in the fact we\u2019ve never really had a plan, or a strategy. We\u2019ve just worked our bollocks off and had a passion for what we do. Luckily we\u2019ve been good enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is unrecognizable. I said to my dad [Barry], \u2018I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re gonna sell out Boardwalk Hall \u2013 it\u2019s pretty cool, innit?\u2019. I think sometimes, we never really look back, \u2018cause it\u2019s every week as well. Barker \u2013 I don\u2019t even really remember it, because it\u2019s week in, week out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first fight against Sergio Martinez [in 2011], we really didn\u2019t know what we were doing. Darren had a load of injuries, and he got several hundred thousand dollars for that fight. At the time, when they made the offer, [Barker\u2019s trainer] Tony Sims and everybody thought, \u2018This is a big, big step up\u2019, because at the time Martinez was a pound-for-pound fighter. We also knew Darren was very good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDarren was always plagued with injuries, and I just looked at it and I thought, \u2018When you have this fight, you\u2019ll do well\u2019. I thought he could win, \u2018cause I was naive then. \u2018You\u2019re gonna have enough money to pay your mortgage off; you can come back, if you lose, fight for the European From Darren Barker to \u2018Boots\u2019 Ennis: Matchroom come full circle again, etc, etc\u2019. He put up a good fight, got beaten; came back with a couple of wins. But that fight gave him the profile to put himself in line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Daniel Geale fight was a voluntary defense. We plucked that out of nowhere, and the money was pretty shit for that fight. But obviously he went and won it, and from there boxed Felix Sturm for a load of money. But he was fucked [injured again], and straight after that he retired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d put him right up there [as one of my leading highlights in boxing]. I remember the moments. When you\u2019re in the ring, and you hear, \u2018And the new\u2019. That one, with Darren \u2013 my dad was there; [Michael] Buffer was in the ring. I thought we\u2019d won it by two rounds, but I felt like it could all be on the last round. \u2018And the new!\u2019, and it\u2019s like Tony Sims \u2013 all good family friends \u2013 Darren\u2019s dad, grandad, and brother, they\u2019re all out the back of The Revel. It was unbelievable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only like a dozen [other moments in boxing that compare]. They\u2019re the moments that you fucking just lose your shit completely. That one was even sweeter, because I didn\u2019t really know what we were doing back then. I didn\u2019t plan. I didn\u2019t think, \u2018We\u2019re gonna have global domination; this market; that market; an app\u2019s gonna come along\u2019. We were just like, \u2018Fucking hell \u2013 we\u2019re in Atlantic City and fighting for the world title\u2019. Those days were very enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The success with England\u2019s Barker \u2013 today a pundit and commentator for DAZN \u2013 was fleeting, but Ennis, a fighter destined for junior middleweight and perhaps middleweight, and Stevenson, who will be the favorite when he fights William Zepeda in the coming months, are capable of giving Matchroom increased long-term power in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dmitry Bivol, Jai Opetaia, Katie Taylor and Jesse \u201cBam\u201d Rodriguez are more of Matchroom\u2019s and the world\u2019s finest fighters; Omari Jones was the US\u2019 most promising Olympian and has also signed with them promotional terms. Where once Hearn was over-reliant on Anthony Joshua, Saul \u201cCanelo\u201d Alvarez and the developing Devin Haney, he is anticipating further success from Diego Pacheco and Andy Cruz.<\/p>\n
\u201c[There\u2019s] a lot more pressure now,\u201d he explained. \u201cA lot more invasion, if you like \u2013 social media \u2013 that\u2019s my fault as well \u2018cause I do a million interviews, and I\u2019m very accessible. People will just queue up and I\u2019ll never say \u2018No\u2019, really.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019m] a lot wiser. Probably calmer, at times. My fuse is shorter now with certain people, but calmer on the whole. Back then I\u2019d take on the world. Now I\u2019m a little bit more diplomatic, at times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes when people see the reaction [to results like Barker\u2019s] they know it ain\u2019t fake, \u2018cause it just can\u2019t be. They look and go, \u2018Who\u2019s that guy? He loves it, don\u2019t he?\u2019. The fighters like that as well, and that\u2019s the truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I would say is as you get bigger, your relationships with the fighters aren\u2019t as strong, \u2018cause they\u2019ve got a manager; a lawyer. [Carl] Frampton\u2019s probably the best example, where I never spoke to Frampton \u2013 I don\u2019t think I had more than one conversation. I promoted him for half-a-dozen fights. So you never really enjoy it as much.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTIC CITY \u2013 If Atlantic City will forever be remembered by those around him as where Jaron \u201cBoots\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,12986,4313,12987,4331,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-19998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-darren-barker","10":"tag-jaron-ennis","11":"tag-jaron-ennis-vs-eimantas-stanionis","12":"tag-matchroom-boxing","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114337984290327157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}