24 Hrs in Monte Carlo
Champagne, fast cars and a world title fight that stopped the room. We go behind the black tie in Monaco for a rare conversation with Matchroom Chairman Eddie Hearn about equality of value, terrifying teenagers and the fight to keep women’s boxing built on substance rather than gimmicks.
By Natasha Dugarin
“It’s not about if you’re a world champion, you get the same money as a male world champion, but if you have the same value as that individual, you must be paid the same. That’s equality of pay. And we’re there now.”
Eddie Hearn is not delivering a soundbite. He is mid-riff in a back room at the Salle des Étoiles in Monte Carlo, talking about women’s boxing like it is both a responsibility and a business reality. A few metres away, staff are flipping the space from weigh in to main event, testing lights and shifting chairs for what the boxing world is dubbing its most glamorous night of the year, Monte-Carlo Showdown VI. He leans in with that unmistakable burst of energy. “What a women’s fight tonight by the way. Beatriz Ferreira against Elif Nur Turhan for the world title. It’s going to be explosive.”
In person he is exactly what the online noise suggests, only more so. Articulate, fast talking, sharply observant. Taller than expected. Far more generous with his time than a schedule like his should allow. He runs one of the most powerful operations in boxing, yet here he is discussing social media demographics and OnlyFans offers with the focus of someone who genuinely cares where the women’s game goes next.
The rest of the card reflects the scale of the night. Monte-Carlo Showdown VI is small by Matchroom Boxing standards, only around eight hundred seats, but the names are strong. Shabaz Masoud meets Peter McGrail in an all-British clash that feels bigger than the room. Johnny Fisher returns. Conah Walker takes on Pat McCormack in a fight that will later go viral for its ending. And Monaco’s own Hugo Micallef faces Sean McComb, which explains why half the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel lobby seems to be talking about him.
Sitting just beneath the main event, exactly where Hearn wants it, is Ferreira versus Turhan. A world title fight built on genuine jeopardy rather than marketing. Ferreira brings two Olympic medals, two world amateur titles and the belt she won in 2024. “She’s a world champion and she’s just a great character,” Hearn says. “You spend time with her, she’s got great energy.”
Turhan brings something entirely different. “She’s this sort of muted figure with an incredible faith in Allah,” he says. “Absolutely quiet as a mouse, and the most devastating puncher and most fearsome fighter I’ve ever seen.”
Her team had messaged Matchroom for years asking for a chance. “There was a boxer in Ireland who needed an opponent. I said fine, but you’ve got to fight Elif. They said no problem. Their Irish fighter was good.” He lifts his hands, remembering it. “Next thing you know Elif knocked her clean out in the first round. When I went in the changing room after, she’s thanking me, puts her hand out, and it’s like, crunch.”
The power in that handshake stays with him. The danger stays with everyone else. Quiet, devout, unnervingly heavy handed. A match up built on style, power and backstory, not just rankings.
So how am I here at all, sitting opposite Eddie Hearn in Monte Carlo while his team rebuild the room outside? A couple of days earlier Glorious received a message asking if we fancied heading to Monaco. Black tie. Full access. A world title fight worth the trip. It did not take long to say yes.
One minute you are scrolling sequins on your sofa, trying to find something that might pass for black tie and still arrive in time, the next you are at Heathrow with a garment bag over your arm, joining the security queue and realising you are standing a few places behind Conor Benn. London, then the blur of departures, then a short flight to Nice, and suddenly you are in the back of a taxi watching the coastline shift from everyday Riviera into something visibly, immediately exclusive.
Monaco announces itself quickly. The road winds in, the buildings tighten, and then Casino Square appears, entirely lit for Christmas. The façade of the Casino and the Hôtel de Paris is washed in colour, a huge tree stands in the centre, and a neat line of Ferraris and Lamborghinis is parked out front like set dressing. Diamonds, Birkin bags, immaculate tuxedos and tracksuits all share the same frame. It is unapologetic glamour, and it does not pretend to be anything else.
Daylight softens it. The next morning the same streets look calmer. Children from the sailing club steer small boats across the harbour. Women take a workout class on rowing machines along the jetty. Runners climb the hills that give Monaco its nickname as a rock rather than a town. Older women smoke Gauloises over tiny coffees, small white dogs in quilted jackets tucked at their feet. Everything is neat, well kept and oddly understated.
Matchroom’s hospitality sits on top of all of this. At the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel, where many of the fighters and staff are based, boxing has taken over entirely. Trainers, cutmen, DAZN crews, Matchroom’s digital team and the familiar faces from boxing media all move through the space. At lunch Adam ‘The Voice of Boxing‘ Smith is holding court with his videographer Andy, talking through how the night will sound on air. Famed social media boxing interviewer Charlie Parsons is cutting content. In the lift later I find myself next to Hugo Micallef, Monaco’s own Fresh Prince, who is fighting McComb later that evening. My brain focuses less on which floor we are heading to and more on the size of the diamond necklace around his neck. Monaco does that to your priorities.
exclusive
You never feel shut out, and that is part of the design. Hearn notes that this accessibility has become “synonymous with what we do on fight week.” “I mean, if you’re a football fan, you’re not going to sit with the players,” he says. “But you can come to the hotel here, look across the restaurant, and see Conor Benn or Chisora and just have a chat. That’s a very unique tool for us.”
The fight-day 5k morning run is an extension of that openness. Staff, fighters, local runners and travelling fans jog the coastline together. People film themselves running with Hearn in the background. It operates as fitness and content simultaneously. “I wanted to build a brand that wasn’t just dependent on the talent,” he says. “If it’s a Matchroom show, people want to be there. The lineup is important, but sometimes it comes second.”
Monte Carlo suits that ambition. “It’s high end. It’s black tie. Monte Carlo is pretty special.” Only around eight hundred people will be in the room tonight, but Hearn tells me he knows at least half of them personally, a travelling core who appear at venues across the world. They are there for the fights, but they are also there because it is Matchroom in Monaco in December.
When the conversation turns to women’s boxing, the business patter drops and something more sincere comes through. He talks about how Matchroom were supporting women long before it was fashionable, long before companies like Most Valuable Promotions, Jake Paul’s own promotional outfit, and others made it a strategic focus. He is blunt about one thing: he will not put women on a card just to tick a box. If a fight is there, it has to sit on its own merits.
Katie Taylor is the obvious starting point. They have worked together for years. “Look at what Katie has done. She has opened the doors,” he says. “We support a lot of amateur gyms, and now every time we go in, there’s always four or five girls. You would never have seen that five years ago.” His own daughter trains at a well known club. “When I go down there and see the young women boxing at grass roots gyms, you see it, they’re often more driven than the boys, especially at that age. The boys are messing around. The girls are focused.”
He is candid about how the landscape has changed. When Matchroom first invested in women’s boxing, part of the appeal was blunt economics: the women were paid less. Then came the morning in Boston that shifted everything. Hearn recalls sitting at breakfast after one of Taylor’s fights when she quietly asked how much the man who boxed after her had earned. “I tried to justify it,” he says. “Well, he’s a world champion.” Taylor did not blink. “She said, well so am I.” He was on three hundred thousand. She was on one hundred. It was the moment the numbers stopped making sense, the point where the pay structure had to catch up with the value she was generating. “If you have the same value as that individual, you must be paid the same. That’s equality of pay. And we’re there now.” A simple line that shows how far the sport has moved. “Katie’s making more than 99.9 percent of male boxers now,” he smiles. Women’s boxing is no longer the cheaper option. The fight must deliver.
strategic
To Hearn, that is exactly why token gestures miss the point. A few years ago he floated the idea of an all-female card for International Women’s Day “I was really excited about it!” he laughs. Taylor stopped him immediately. “She said, absolutely not. Why does it have to be all female? She wanted good fights, not a themed night.” The data supports her. “All-female cards don’t really work. They don’t sell in the same way. A hardcore male fight fan will not buy a ticket for one.” He shrugs at the unfairness. “Female sport gets criticised more when it’s not good. There are loads of average men’s fights, but when a women’s fight is poor, it’s suddenly eye rolls and questions of why are we even doing this.”
He believes the future lies with the next generation. Depth is everything. “When Katie went to the Olympics, there were good amateurs, but nothing like now. In five to ten years, all these kids in the gyms will be turning professional. It used to be easy to win a world title. Now it’s hard because there are so many fighters.”
New names like Tiah Mai Ayton excite him. “She was unbeaten in jiu jitsu and kickboxing for years. Doing MMA at eleven. Videos of her wrestling in cages. Then she becomes a boxer. She is the ultimate fighting machine. Nineteen. Scary. Scary good!” Outside the ring she is polite and quiet. Inside it, she is a problem for any opponent.
Then comes promotion. “Some people promote female boxing in a bit of a trashy way,” he says. “I hate it.” He has turned down major offers from brands and from OnlyFans. “I know not everybody on OnlyFans is doing adult content, but when my daughters are talking about that site, and you have a female athlete saying she wants to be respected for her craft, it becomes a question of where we are going with this.”
He accepts that fighters need to earn a living, but he does not believe the women in his stable should be pushed towards gimmicks that undermine the sport. “Katie Taylor is a great example, the purest of those. These people can build really good brands.”
He points to the fighters who are doing it with a sense of identity that feels natural. “Tiah is one, who might not even be doing it consciously,” he says, meaning she is building an audience without forcing anything. “Skye Nicolson is brilliant at building a brand. Katie did not do it consciously at the start, but the team built a great one around her.” He adds that plenty of fighters outside Matchroom follow the same path with equal pride.
fandom
What he does not want is gimmick led promotion. He references a recent incident involving Molly McCann, who has crossed from MMA into professional boxing with Matchroom. A ‘wardrobe malfunction’ from Molly’s opponent at the weigh in made the same amount of headlines as the fight itself. “Each to their own, but for me there is a fine line. This is professional sport. High level professional sport. I want you to dream of winning championships and inspiring the next generation.”
The audience breakdown is still skewed. “Most of our female fighters have ninety per cent male followers. They would love more women following them. They do not want grim comments from men. They post lifestyle content and it gets no numbers. They want engagement from women, but it is hard to reach them.”
The commercial picture, however, is improving. “We are seeing a lot more interest from the big sportswear brands in the women,” he says. “Champion worked with Tiah and Katie. Everlast with Skye. Nike are looking at it. They are more willing to work with female talent than a lot of the men now.”
For him, the equation is simple. If the fighter has a story worth following and a career worth backing, the sport should treat her with the same seriousness as any man. He wants the women on his cards to be seen as athletes first, not content vehicles or opportunities for viral moments.
Saudi inevitably enters the discussion. “Not everybody is a fan of women’s boxing,” he says. But he insists there is no formal barrier. “They have never said we do not want women’s fights, but the preference is the big male fights.” He mentions Raven Chapman against Skye Nicolson, which they staged there. Behind the scenes, things are shifting. “In the academies there are loads of female fighters. You just need one to come through, go to the Olympics. It would be massive.” The cultural divide remains. “Older generations are uneasy. The younger lot are changing fast.”
By the time fight night arrives, my head is full of geopolitics and gender equity and absolutely none of that helps me locate an iron. After a mildly frantic call to housekeeping, the black tie outfit is steamed into submission and we make our way to the Salle des Étoiles. The room has transformed into a compact, high end arena, all lights, mirrors and rising noise, a space built for spectacle. Tuxedos and sequins drift between rows. Champagne circulates. We are close enough to the ring to hear shots land and the referee warn the fighters. Prince Albert sits a few rows away.
The undercard rolls first. Monaco’s own Hugo Micallef walks out to a wall of noise for his fight with Sean McComb, the home crowd rising with every exchange. Johnny Fisher follows, grinding out a hard, needed win over Ivan Balaz as the room roars him forward. Then Conah Walker and Pat McCormack deliver the kind of chaos that becomes instant social media currency.
Then comes the women’s world title fight.
Turhan walks first. Quiet, composed, almost serene, exactly as Hearn described. No theatrics, no change of expression, just a fighter who looks as though she has already settled the entire night in her head. Ferreira follows, sharp and assured, a champion who has seen enough pressure stages not to flinch at the noise. The contrast between them is immediate and absorbing.
Referee Diana Drews Milani brings them together in the centre. The bell rings and the room tightens at once.
In the first round Turhan’s power is impossible to ignore. A right hand sends Ferreira down. Seconds later another drops her cleanly. Ferreira regroups in the second and third, adjusts distance, forces exchanges. The fourth is competitive, the champion finding pockets of success. The fifth changes everything. Turhan traps her on the ropes and unloads. A stream of clean shots lands. Ferreira sinks. Milani steps in at 1.08 of the round.
It is brutal and strangely calm. Turhan thanks God, then walks straight to Ferreira, who is stunned and emotional, and they embrace. The Turkish flag is draped over her shoulders. The room rises quickly, black tie and polished shoes pressing towards the ring. Hearn had called her the most devastating puncher he had ever seen. By the time she steps back through the ropes, it feels less like promoter talk and more like accepted truth.
Turhan’s win lingers long after the chairs start folding and the lights come up. It is not only the power, although that is impossible to ignore. It is the sense that something has shifted, even if nobody says it aloud.
Later that night the glamour slips into something looser. Slammers, a small neighbourhood bar tucked a few streets back from the marina, is normally the kind of place where locals drink quietly and tourists never quite find. For fight week, Matchroom have taken it over and renamed it the Matchroom Arms, turning this unpolished spot into an unofficial after-hours clubhouse. In black tie it looks faintly absurd, which might be why it instantly becomes the most relaxed room in Monaco.
Staff who are finished for the night drift in. Fans finally exhale. Media compare notes. A few locals who clearly hadn’t expected Monaco’s most exclusive weekend to spill into their quiet bar find themselves pulled into the mix. Everyone ends up cheers-ing with the first reasonably priced glass of wine anyone has found in the principality.
Next to me, a man still in his tux admits he had never watched women’s boxing before tonight. “I didn’t think it would be like that,” he says, more to himself than to me. Then, after a moment, “I’d pay to watch her again.”
That is the part that matters. Not the roar in the Salle des Étoiles. Not the mirrored ceiling or the black tie or the lights. A stranger in a tiny Monaco bar, converted on the spot. For Hearn, value has always been the metric. Turhan delivered it without speaking a word. She walked into a room built to impress and reduced it to something simple and human. No gimmicks. No theatre. Just the fundamentals of the sport.
Champion
And that is what stays with me as we step back out into Monaco’s immaculate December streets, the Matchroom Arms fading behind us, orange trees blooming as if the calendar is lying. The city looks as polished as ever, but something about the night has stripped the surface back. Beneath the spectacle, the most compelling thing was the simplest one. Two fighters meeting on equal terms, one of them forcing an entire room to rethink what it thought it knew.
In a place built on calculation and display, the safest bet of the night turned out to be the future of women’s boxing. Not because anyone marketed it that way, but because for five rounds in a mirrored room above the sea, the proof was impossible to ignore.
To find out more about Matchroom Boxing click here.
With thanks to Matchroom Boxing & photographer Mark Robinson
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