Hall of Fame promoter Frank Warren has taken issue with recent comments from his good friend and rival promoter Eddie Hearn, where Hearn according to Warren claimed boxing was taking place in leisure centers and was dead before he came into the game.

Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Eddie Hearn has played a part in growing the sport of boxing since getting into the game over the last six years or so – but to say boxing was dead before him is a bit of a stretch in all fairness.

In the UK the likes of Amir Khan, Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe were putting on big shows before the Hearn era and in the US obviously the likes of Mayweather, Pacquiao and De La Hoya were all around.

The sport is about the boxers at the end of the day. Not the promoters.

You can be the best promoter in the world but if you don’t have the fighters or the platform to show them to people on, you’ve got nothing.

Speaking to Rob Tedbutt of Boxing Social, Warren fumed at one claim that he alleges Hearn made recently:

“Even this weekend in the Telegraph Hearn came out with yet more bull**** how if it were not for him boxing was dead (and that) 10 years ago boxing was taking place at small gymnasiums and places with hoops at either end. The reason boxing, if he wants to say died, and it died on Sky when they stopped doing pay per views – was because he brought back Audley Harrison and he stuck Audley Harrison in with David Haye, and it stunk the joint out which caused Sky to stop doing pay per view, which for a while killed boxing (in the UK).”

The Hearn and Warren rivalry has been a bitter one over the last five or six years to say the least.

The two men are due to meet in person for the first time ever ahead of the Billy Joe Saunders vs Demetrius Andrade WBO middleweight world title fight in October.