“He’s not as much as a clown as he makes out,” Hearn said. “He’s fallen in love with boxing, as everybody does.”
Hearn said the millions of additional eyes from Paul’s social platforms “can only be good” for boxing, especially its marketability.
“Some people get it confused: A female middleweight world champion shouldn’t make the same amount of money necessarily as a male middleweight world champion,” Hearn said. “But if they have the same commercial value, they should receive the same amount of money, and that hasn’t been the case.”
After Dmitry Bivol defeated Saúl Álvarez, known as Canelo, on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Serrano’s team suggested a doubleheader billed as “The Rematches.” Paul has said that his goal is to get Serrano, who once had paydays measured in three- and low-four-digit numbers, a $10 million payday before her career is over, and he recognized that changing the system was “a long-term play.”
One question baked into that goal is whether Paul can sustain his evolution from the internet’s tormentor in chief to a businessman and promoter in a sport that he calls “the ultimate form of barbaric expression.”
“I tell my friends this: I literally have enough money to retire for the rest of my life, ride off into the sunset and never work again,” he said. “To me, it’s not about the money, it’s not about the attention. It’s about the legacy and leaving this sport in a better place than where I found it because I owe my life to boxing.”
Paul said promoting Serrano was “just the start” of his career as a boxing matchmaker. And, of course, he has his own fights to promote.
On the morning after Serrano’s loss, Paul was back on social media, this time to announce the date of his next fight, in August, against an opponent to be determined.