Frank Warren has managed the likes of Frank Bruno and Naseem Hamed through to Amir Khan and Tyson Fury
Frank Warren celebrates 40 years as a boxing promoter on Tuesday on what has been an extraordinary journey of stamina, survival and self-belief. As well as being inducted into the sport’s international boxing hall of fame, putting on some of the greatest fight nights ever seen, creating the first ever exclusive boxing channel – and even being shot – Warren has, at 68, as much vim and vigour for the industry as he ever had.
Warren hails from a working class family in Islington – his father was a bookmaker – and he has always had a fighter’s mentality. The list of the protégés who have walked to the ring under his banner is extraordinary – from Frank Bruno to Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton to Joe Calzaghe, through Amir Khan to a modern heavyweight star in Tyson Fury.
Warren has a soft spot – and a good story – about them all. There is even a life-sized statue of Hamed, dressed in mask and goggles in a nod to the current pandemic, in his office in Hertford where we meet to discuss his career.
That said, Warren’s journey was almost over before it began four decades ago. “I lost quite a bit of money on my first show,” he recalled. “It was my first Boxing Board of Control show and the arena was virtually empty. The public just didn’t get involved. It was hard.”
Perhaps, but Warren – a man who lost half a lung when he was shot by a masked, and still unidentified, gunman as he got out of his car in Barking in 1989 – was ready to tough it out.
“A big moment way back when for me was getting my first television fight, which was Clinton McKenzie and Steve Early on BBC TV [in 1982]. That was monumental for me because there was only one promoter on television at the time [run by the quartet of Jarvis Astaire, Mike Barrett, Micky Duff and Terry Lawless] and I showed you could break their hold on it. From there, we went on to build ITV into a home for boxing and international boxing.”
Warren freely admits that the art of timing is essential to a good promoter – knowing the moment to pitch your fighter into the right kind of contest, and against the right opponent. He is also a sucker for an underdog: by his reckoning, nine out of 10 fights he promotes are ones in which his boxer is the outsider.
Maybe that is a product of his background. Look around Warren’s office now, and the trappings of success are everywhere: every wall is bedecked by precious memorabilia, every shelf stuffed with valuable books and antiques. He sent his sons – Francis, George and Henry – to private school and he now lives in a mansion in leafy Hertfordshire, a world away from his grittier childhood locale in north London.
But Warren has not forgotten his roots. “I’m lucky because I come from a working class background and most fighters come from the same,” he reflects. “No one can tell me about the hard times because I’ve been there and done it.
“My kids are lucky. They had quite a privileged upbringing. We managed to keep their feet on the ground but they were all privately educated and went to university. That was important to me. When I was a kid I passed the 11-plus and that was like going to university in my family. But I left school when I was 14. Everything I’ve learned has been self-educated. And I wouldn’t have had it any different.”
When he reflects on the superstars who have been in his stable, Warren’s fondness for the underdog once again shines through. Take Bruno, the biggest star in British boxing in the 1980s. “Frank had had three attempts at the world title and he hadn’t won,” Warren remembers. “But then he did it at the fourth attempt – that was a satisfying one.
“I managed to get Wembley Stadium for that fight, which was one of our first big fights on Sky Sports when we joined them. The fact Frank won was brilliant, and it’s ironic it was his former promoters were sitting front row to see him win a world title with me, in a fight I made that nobody thought he’d win. That was a good moment.”
Now Warren is on a roll. “Naz, Calzaghe, Hatton, there have been so many great journeys. We went to Madison Square Garden with Naz [against Kevin Kelley] and no British promoter had ever had an event there. It was before Christmas, and everyone said we’d fall on our a—. We did a great job there and it was a fantastic fight.”
Fast forward to the modern era, and one man bestrides the Warren stable like no other. “Tyson Fury is the most remarkable man and remarkable fighter,” Warren says. “The fact he came back from all his trials and tribulations having beaten Wladimir Klitschko, overcame suicide, the boozing and bingeing, is remarkable.
“He came back under me, and I think we were good for each other. I really fancied him against [Deontay] Wilder. He won that first fight, got robbed. They all thought it would be a knock over job. That being said, I don’t know how he got up that last round.
To come back the second time and destroy Wilder, this year, for me is probably the best performance by any British fighter ever.” Warren, you sense, sees in Fury a man in his own image – no frills, no pretence and rooted in the community that produced him. “Tyson Fury is what he is,” he says. “He doesn’t have a massive entourage going round with him. He’s approachable. He’d be in the pub with you the next day. He’s done well for himself and for mental health. He’s been an inspiration.”
Fury has helped keep Warren at the top of the boxing game in an era when other, younger promoters such as Eddie Hearn are flexing their considerable muscle. But there is no suggestion that Warren is thinking of retirement: on the contrary, he sounds enthused and energised about the future, both of the sport and of his role in it.
“We’ve probably got the best bunch of kids for the last 15 years – great guys, who will win world titles,” he says.
Some of the next generation will be on show at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday, when Warren has invited key workers to his 40th anniversary event, featuring Anthony Yarde vs Lyndon Arthur as the headline act, but Warren is already looking ahead to his own successors: all his sons are involved in his company. “I didn’t realise how seduced they’d be by boxing,” he says, with a laugh.
Be in no doubt – the Warren name will be synonymous with British boxing for many years yet.
Frank Warren’s 40th anniversary as a boxing promoter, including Anthony Yarde vs Lyndon Arthur, is live on BT Sport on Saturday.