EDDIE HEARN SAYS his Matchroom Boxing outfit employed three times more security staff for Canelo Alvarez’s recent homecoming bout in Mexico than they will use in Dublin this week for Katie Taylor’s equivalent.
On Saturday night at the 3Arena, Taylor will move up in weight to challenge her fellow undisputed champion Chantelle Cameron of England in what will be the first major professional boxing event at the venue since 2014.
Since the Regency Hotel shooting at a boxing weigh-in in 2016, there have been 17 fully sanctioned professional boxing cards in Dublin, but nothing to the scale of Taylor and Cameron’s bout which will see over 8,000 people take to their seats on North Dock.
And while promoter Hearn stressed that there is a need to ensure that “everyone is comfortable” at promotional events in the build-up to the fight this week — which began with a public workout by the protagonists in Dundrum town centre on Wednesday afternoon — he insisted that Matchroom’s use of security in Dublin was nothing especially out of the ordinary.
“I’ve seen some rubbish being written,” Hearn said. “Of course, I think everybody in this country wants to make sure that the event goes ahead smoothly. The eyes of the world are on this fight and on Dublin.
I saw someone saying we’re ‘flying all of these [security guards].’ Of course, yeah, we have security. We have security wherever we go! We’ve just been to Guadalajara (for Canelo’s bout with John Ryder earlier this month). We had three times the security in Guadalajara that we’ll have in Dublin this week.
“The only thing that’s been a bit different are that the public events are being capped a little bit. We would have liked to have pushed that out more.
For example, we’ve had 5,000 ticket requests for the weigh-in and, at the moment, we’re only allowed 300 people. Those talks are ongoing to make sure everyone is comfortable.
“Don’t forget it’s the first one back and it’s the biggest one you’ve had since Bernard Dunne. And it’s bigger than that. So, people just want to get it right.
“But no, there hasn’t been an excessive spend on security. Maybe [security in Dublin is more expensive] than an event at Wembley Arena but it’s not anywhere near Guadalajara, for example.”
Asked if the scrutiny around security would dissuade him from staging another show in Dublin in the near future, Hearn replied firmly: “No. Not at all.”
The only thing that’s off-putting is the hotel prices. Fuck me. Excuse my language — but we’ve never spent so much on hotels. And I’m talking about New York, Vegas, London, Madrid, Milan… It’s unbelievable. But we’re here.
Hearn confirmed that Saturday night’s bout has now sold out despite the availability of a number of tickets in the more expensive price brackets on Ticketmaster earlier this week.
One aspect of the fight that might lure him back to Dublin, be it with Taylor or further down the line, is the gate revenue. Hearn confirmed with the 3Arena on Tuesday night that Taylor-Cameron is “by far the highest grossing event ever at the 3Arena, by a matter of miles”.
He said that the gate will be worth “Considerably over €2m” and “a huge amount more” than Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano’s 20,000-capacity sellout at Madison Square Garden last April.
“I mean, look, the tickets were expensive,” the promoter acknowledged. “We put some back on. The €1500 and the €750 were obviously slow. Some were still available but they’re all gone now.”
The Matchroom boss, who has promoted Taylor since she first turned professional following the 2016 Rio Olympics, admitted that as recently as a couple of years ago, he believed the Irish boxing icon would never get the opportunity to box professionally in her home country.
“This is something that should have happened in her first five or six fights,” Hearn said. “She could have come here and filled arenas consistently but she’s had to go on the road. We’ve kind of done it back to front, really.
“I think the atmosphere is going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before and I can’t wait.”
