Is hearn the greatest con man of all time?

... I’m 74 you know!

 

They do look alike I guess

 

Isn’t that a job well done by Hearn though?

Yes it’s annoying but he’s a promoter, if he’s saying Joshua is pretty average knocking over weak competition in an even weaker era then he’d be doing a horrendous job.

Isn’t Fury currently being sold as the literal second coming of Ali? Or Loma as the best fighter to have ever set foot in the ring? Rinse repeat with the next generation.

 

Ha ha - Obviously I’m not one of the experts!

 

It's a big test for Hearn now, regardless of what happens with Joshua going forward. Longevity as a promoter is about being able to recover, rebuild and reinvent. Hearn caught lightning in a bottle with Joshua, and aligned with his new media savvy he was able to bring stadium events back to boxing in a way that hadn't been seen in this country since before the war.

None of this would have worked though if Joshua hadn't delivered in the ring when it mattered. The drama of the Klitschko fight, and coming back from the brink of defeat, pushed him over the edge and into superstar status. Joshua beat the best heavyweight of the previous era, and several top 10 guys. He deserved to be ranked number 1 at the time. He lost to Ruiz, so he isn't number 1 anymore. That's normal in boxing; we don't need to retcon everything that's happened before for us all to make more sense of it.

Obviously it's all gone a bit pear-shaped, and Plan A has to be Joshua getting back to where he was. If that doesn't happen though, he needs to reinvent like King did when Tyson was sent down. He took an established Mexican star and built him into a cultural icon, to the point that he could sell out the Azteca against a washed-up lightweight.