Al Haymon is one of the most powerful and influential men in boxing today, though relatively little is known about him. The adviser who heads up Premier Boxing Champions has a good portion of the world’s top boxing talent on his books, with stars such as Deontay Wilder, Errol Spence and Gervonta Davis to name but a few.
Floyd Mayweather was one of the first top boxers to link up with Haymon and most of those who do so become fiercely loyal to him and PBC.
For the general public however, his impact is somewhat mysterious due to the fact he never gives interviews and is seldom ever seen at events.
In 2014 and 2017, British promoter Eddie Hearn met with Haymon for unsuccessful talks to try and make two fights.
Discussing these meetings, Hearn told The Ak and Barak Show on SiriusXM: “I’ve met the guy twice in my life. He does exist.
“The first time was at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica and I flew over to LA to try and negotiate Carl Froch against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Six years ago.
“I didn’t know what he looked like or anything like that.
“I’m sitting in the reception and this guy just walks in. He had a Bentley flat cap on and I looked at this guy and went, ‘There’s no way that’s Al Haymon.’
“And he came over and he was on his own. A very calming man, super intelligent.
“I mean, look, I don’t always agree with everything that Al Haymon does, but I have a huge amount of respect for him because he’s very good at his job.
“Same with Bob Arum, if you don’t respect Bob Arum and his longevity in the sport, you don’t have to respect every move that he’s made or every deal that he’s done.
“But anybody that sticks at something for that long and stays at the top of something for that long, you have to respect him.
“We didn’t get a deal done there and then next time we met he was a completely different character because we were sort of already making moves in the US.
“That was a meeting between myself and Al and Shelly [Finkel – Wilder’s manager].”
Asked if Haymon was more aggressive this time around, Hearn said: “Yeah, like he was under pressure.
“I think he’s under a huge amount of pressure now, listen we all are.
“I can’t sit here and tell you I’m walking into DAZN and I’m floating on air and they’re cleaning my shoes when I walk in. I’ve gotta deliver.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, you have to deliver. If you don’t deliver a quality show, people aren’t tuning in to watch.
“That’ll be the same with us, if we’re not driving subscribers, if we’re not producing quality content, if we’re not getting people talking, we’ll be out.
“So I feel like Al now is under a lot of pressure because he has a lot of fighters to get out and it is a high pressure environment.
“But he’s very good at what he does and he’s a very intelligent man, and we will continue to battle away.
“Right now it’s like the big three, which is PBC, Matchroom and Top Rank.”
Regarding whether he’s spoken to Haymon on separate occasions since, Hearn said: “I don’t even think he has a phone.
“One of my closest friends is Luis DeCubas who works for Al Haymon.
“And me and Luis have an exceptional relationship where we have been able to make fights like that.
“I made the Charles Martin fight [vs Anthony Joshua] through Luis DeCubas, I made the Andy Ruiz fight through Luis DeCubas.
“Al won’t like me. I don’t think we really need to [meet in person again].
“Sometimes you meet someone in this game where you just are on a wavelength where you can get things done and me and Luis are on that wavelength.
“I believe if we’re gonna do Joshua vs Wilder, it’ll be done through Luis DeCubas.
“And we’ve already discussed it in the last couple of weeks where we’re like, ‘Look, get the Fury fight done, but let’s get this fight made. You and me, no bulls***, no Al Haymon, no Shelly Finkel.’”
