Last week, at Matchroom’s 18-acre mansion in Brentwood, Eddie Hearn challenged Henry Pollock to a competition in the gym.
‘We were doing bench presses and I said, “Come on, I want to see this strength”,’ Hearn tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘He rocked up and was pumping 120kg on the bar like it was nothing at all. I was like, “You’re actually a freak!”’
On the same afternoon, the tycoon boxing promoter signed up Pollock to his agency.
Pollock, 21, is one of the brightest young talents in the game and he is the first rugby player to join Hearn’s growing stable that includes heavyweight fighter Anthony Joshua and MMA star Tom Aspinall.
‘Pollock has popped up everywhere over the last couple of months and I thought, “Who is this kid? I like him”,’ explains Hearn. ‘I’d seen the celebration and the images of him licking his lips during the haka.
‘My world is dealing with people in boxing who have come from underprivileged societies, kids with huge chips on their shoulder, problems growing up, been to prison, been in gangs and boxing has turned their life around.
‘In the rugby world, a lot of those players aren’t underprivileged. Henry went to Stowe School where I used to play cricket for Essex. It’s definitely not underprivileged but it doesn’t matter what your background is as long as you have the right fundamentals for life.
‘I played rugby at a very low level and it has so many of the same fundamentals of boxing. Discipline, respect, physicality, manners, teamwork. Forget the backgrounds, it’s the same educator. It’s a much better educator than sitting in a classroom learning about neutrons and protons.
‘As soon as Henry came in last week, I thought, “I love this kid”. A young kid with bundles of talent, big balls on him and a personality to light up the room.
‘I can see hundreds of thousands of kids with a rugby ball under their arm, with a running commentary pretending they’re Henry Pollock.’
Pollock is one of the most talked-about figures in rugby, known for his peroxide hair, eccentric try celebrations and supreme talent.
Matchroom will take charge of his commercial dealings, while his rugby operations will continue to be managed by Stellar, whom Hearn previously worked for as a golf agent.
Hearn’s aim is to transform Pollock into a mainstream celebrity by multiplying his visibility over the coming weeks.
‘Firstly, rugby is paramount,’ says Hearn. ‘What I can’t do is tell the world he’s a superstar, bring him into this mainstream audience and all of a sudden he starts playing poorly and gets dropped by England. I told him, “You’re a superstar because you‘re a great player”.
‘What we have to do now is keep growing the brand and profile of Henry Pollock. Over the next three or four weeks, you are probably going to get quite bored of seeing Henry Pollock everywhere. We need him on every mainstream chat show, every major sports outlet.
‘The stuff he did with Barcelona the other week was hugely powerful. It’s seeing him out on the F1 grid walking with Lewis Hamilton, sitting down with Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross on the big sofa on BBC One.
‘The kid is golden. You’ve just got to roll him out and let everybody fall in love with him. As I explained to him, there will also be people who don’t fall in love with him. That comes with the world and he’s well equipped for that. When you’re a superstar, you’re just ready for all that stuff.’
In the boxing world, Hearn is the master of selling fights. He has allowed rivalries and feuds to develop between fighters, creating gripping narratives before the fighters step into the ring.
Fighters sit side by side in press conferences, where emotions often boil over. Rugby has a more conservative attitude and Hearn believes there is untapped potential for story-telling.
‘I want to build rivalries. There are players that won’t like each other. I’m not going to start doing face-offs before the game.
‘There was a load of beef between Ronnie O’Sullivan and another player recently and I told the snooker lads to do a press conference with them both. They were like, “What, individually?” No, together. You do that, you drive viewership, you create more media, you put more bums on seats.
‘That’s not really my job here but I look at Red Bull (at Newcastle) and other money men coming into the sport and they are going to do that job for you. There’s no way Red Bull will come in and just follow the old traditional code of rugby. They’re going to want to monetise it and drive hype. Where are the rivalries? I don’t know.
‘All you’ve got to do is be a storyteller and let things unfold naturally and you build the hype around that. I’m sure there will be someone playing for the Springboks in July who goes, “You know that Pollock… what a prat he is. I can’t wait for the game, I’m going to nail him in the first five minutes”. We’re not looking to bastardise it. This is real. It’s not made up.
‘I would be bringing the teams together and creating those rivalries because it’s going to make people watch. It’s not rocket science. We want to keep it respectful – rugby is different in that respect – but you need to explain what it means to people. What grabbed me at the Wales-Italy game was looking around during the national anthem and seeing people in tears. I was like “Wow, this is unbelievably powerful”.’
Time will tell if Hearn becomes a mediator in rugby’s long-running discussions with the Middle East. He has made Saudi Arabia the home of heavyweight boxing and he believes the money men will have a huge appetite for his new client.
‘Saudi is going to look at all sports that are hot and current. They would definitely look at someone like Pollock and be engaged,’ Hearn adds. ‘They’re very smart people. They see trends, they see numbers and, let’s be honest, what individual in rugby is creating numbers like Pollock? No one. Others are miles off the pace so he’ll be getting their attention.
‘If there are financial opportunities for players in the Middle East, every other sport is going there, so why shouldn’t rugby? Is the game getting their attention? They like to do things that are a little bit differently around the structure of the game.
‘Whether that’s something the RFU will look and go “Absolutely not” I don’t know. My job is to build the commercial brand and revenue of Henry Pollock. Another word for that is money.
‘Within six to 12 months, Henry Pollock will be making more off the field than he’s making on it. That will change because I’m aware of his contracts and that needs to change. I’m not moaning about them and he’s not moaning about them but I know the value of him and that will change in due course.
‘The moment I saw him, I thought this kid is a superstar. This kid could single-handedly change rugby.’
