Picture: Box to Box Films producer Paul Martin
We recently had the pleasure to talk about Box to Box Films’ latest exciting sports docuseries, Matchroom: The Greatest Showroom, with executive producer and Box to Box co-creator Paul Martin.
Matchroom: The Greatest Showman is a sports docuseries produced by Box to Box Films, the same team behind F1 Drive to Survive, Break Point, and Full Swing.
The series centers on the larger-than-life father-son sports promoter duo of Barry and Eddie Hearn, and their remarkable work in the British sports scene, encompassing sports such as boxing, darts, and snooker.
Paul Martin is the executive producer of Matchroom: The Greatest Showman and the co-creator of Box to Box Films, and has worked extensively on other documentaries such as The Kings, Diego Maradona, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Sprint, Full Swing, Race for the Crown, and SEC Football: Any Given Saturday.
Jacob: So, why Matchroom? How did that project come to be?
Paul: Listen, I’m a huge boxing fan. I’m a huge sports fan, obviously, and with all the work that we’ve done, I think that’s evident. Going back to the 1990s, I recall seeing this kind of rivalry at the heart of British boxing and British sport, particularly between Frank Warren and Barry Hearn. I was very young then, but I was kind of captivated by Barry.
Then, years later, he passes the reins on over to Eddie [Hearn], and he’s become such a charismatic and big personality across the world of sports. I had seen that Eddie had done a couple of interviews where he discussed Drive to Survive, and he spoke about being a fan and how they should consider exploring the world of boxing. I think I DM’d him from the company Instagram account to let him know we’d love to chat. So I think four years passed between that, and I can’t remember when it was, but I later got introduced to Eddie, and I met Frank Smith, the CEO of Matchroom. That’s where it sort of came out of, being a fan of the Hearns, and a fan of what Matchroom had done for British sport, in particular darts, snooker, and boxing.
There was a curiosity about them, like, are they really like how they come across on television? I mean, the answer is yes, they are! They’re genuine and exactly what you see when you tune into any of these events. So, yeah, it was really just a curiosity and a desire to get inside the minds of Eddie and Barry, and the wider Matchroom team.
Picture: Father-son duo Eddie Hearn (left) and Barry Hearn (right) in Matchroom – Box to Box Films
Jacob: Box to Box helped bring out the personalities of the media-trained stars of Drive to Survive, Full Swing, and Break Point. But with Eddie Barry, they already have larger-than-life personalities. What was it like getting to work with these two massive sports promoters?
Paul: There’s no filter with either of them, therefore, you know, there’s never anything that they’re trying to–sometimes you do these shows, and you get a sense that people are trying to show you a certain side of themselves, or trying to present a version of themselves, and that’s fine, you know? But I think with Eddie and Barry in particular, there’s no filter, and what you see is what you get, and it’s very refreshing.
It’s very refreshing to know that you’re going to turn up, the cameras are going to go on, they’re just on, because they’re already on when the cameras are not there. The way you see them behave, and the way you see them interact with each other, is completely what they’re like, cameras or not. That’s not always the case on these shows, and sometimes you want some more from people, sometimes you really want them to drop the facade and be themselves. That’s the great thing about Eddie and Barry, they’re completely comfortable with who they are. They’re also completely comfortable with the public’s perception of them as well, and I think that’s why they’ve been so successful.
Caption/Description: Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen. (L to R) Barry Hearn, Eddie Hearn, in Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen. Cr. Courtesy of Tom Dymond/Netflix © 2025
Jacob: So, after your experience working on Matchroom, would Box to Box be interested in producing a docuseries for darts or snooker? Or would you personally like to step into the world of boxing? Netflix already has Countdown, but with so many other fighters to cover, would that be something you would be interested in producing?
Paul: I’m a huge boxing fan, and I think the one thing that I’ve learned about, or certainly my experience of boxing after making the show The Kings, is about Hagler, Hearns, Roberto Duran, and Sugar Ray Leonard. So, the one thing I learned from the making of that is boxing is the most political sport you can ever get into. We came out of that, and we were like, “Oh my god, if we never did another boxing project again, I wouldn’t be too disappointed,” even though I absolutely love it as a sport.
Listen, initially, the Matchroom conversation started out focusing on the boxing, and then maybe we could have brought in some of the other American promoters. So we looked at that. However, as these projects often do, it evolved into a broader examination of the Matchroom world. But, yeah, as a fan of boxing, I absolutely would love to do many more shows in the boxing world, but as someone who understands the politics of it, I know that it’s not as simple as that. It’s a complicated world full of very big egos– I was talking to someone, actually at Netflix, the other day, and, obviously, they’ve got their big boxing event this weekend, Canelo and Crawford. And they said the biggest challenge of boxing is figuring out who’s not speaking to whom at any one time, you know? It’s a maddening sport, I think.
Caption/Description: Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen. (L to R) Katie Taylor, Eddie Hearn, in Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
Jacob: Matchroom also covers darts, which is one of the best sports for vibes around at the moment, and you were able to work with Luke Littler. What was it like working with him?
Paul: I’ll be honest with you, I live in Los Angeles now, and one of the things that I miss the most about being in England is being able to watch the World Darts Championship over the Christmas period. It’s such an institution and I love it. I’ve got mates that go every year, and it’s just the best. Luke is a phenomenon; he’s absolutely incredible, and the nation is obsessed with him.
So I think for us to get him in the show was great. It was really pleasing to have him as part of the show, and you know, it’s funny because you talk to Americans about Luke Littler and they don’t really understand the phenomenon. Then you show pictures of him, and of that world, which is curiously a British kind of phenomenon, and could only exist as a superstar in the UK. Hopefully, shows like Matchroom will propel him to new heights and to a different audience.
Picture: Luke Littler (left) and Barry Hearn (right) – Box to Box Films
Jacob: Arugably over the past decade, we’ve seen the very best of sports docuseries. So what do you think the next 10 years are going to look like? Will sports docuseries remain popular? What’s it going to take to take them to the next level?
Paul: It’s a really good question, because we’ve made a lot of docuseries, but I think what people forget is when we came in to make Drive to Survive, Formula One was in a very different place than where it is now. So as a result, we were really allowed to go into that world and make the exact show that we wanted to make without any second-guessing or anything of that.
I think the success of that, and obviously a lot of other sports, have wanted to do their own version of Drive to Survive, and some have been more successful than others. But I think what it goes back to is that I’m a great believer that the power of really strong stories and really strong characters is what drives these shows. Maybe, in the shake-up of the sheer number of sports that have done these kinds of docuseries, maybe that’s been lost a little bit.
I think the reason that Drive to Survive is on its eighth season is because we still get to tell the exact stories that we feel are important and that we feel audiences are going to resonate with. Formula One and Netflix really let us get on with making the show, I think, to make that the most important thing, the authenticity of it. Audiences are very, very good at sniffing out inauthenticity, and that’s what’s refreshing about Matchroom: it’s authentically Barry and Eddie; they aren’t portraying themselves as anything else.
The world of sport will always be interesting to people, but I think you have to portray it in a very, very authentic way. Because if you don’t, I think audiences see through it, and they don’t engage in a way you want them to. You won’t ever get them to a show just by rehashing last year’s events and results; you’ve got to be adding some value in that process. So, yeah, I think there have been a few too many shows that have lost sight of that a little bit.
Jacob: So, after Matchroom, what comes next for Box to Box Films? The next season of Full Swing is in production, right?
Paul: Yeah! We’ve got crews at the Ryder Cup in a couple of weeks, which I think will be explosive! I mean, listen, I think the great thing about doing this is we never know. We’re always talking to a lot of people, we’re always talking and looking at a lot of worlds, but you never know which ones are going to be interesting and that kind of stuff. So, more Drive to Survive, more Full Swing, and hopefully more Matchroom!
Picture: Rory McIlory in Full Swing – Box to Box Films
Are you going to be watching Matchroom: The Greatest Showroom on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below!
