Eddie Hearn thought he had a fight between Brian Norman Jr. and Jaron "Boots" Ennis in the palm of his hands.

There were several times in 2024 when the longtime promoter believed a deal was in place, but, according to Hearn, Norman got cold feet, forcing him to go elsewhere.

Eimantas Stanionis wasn't a bad consolation prize.

After handing the Lithuanian a sixth-round stoppage loss, he grabbed the WBA and vacant Ring titles and draped them over his shoulder, which paired nicely with his IBF strap.

Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) is now healing from his wounds and enjoying some vacation time. Hearn, though, won't allow himself to take his eyes off the prize. He's working behind the scenes. His goal is as simple as it gets — make the Norman fight.

Apparently, Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) isn’t an easy negotiation. Hearn admittedly threw another large sum of money in the face of the WBO titlist, despite him preparing for a title defense against Jin Sasaki on June 19.

Hearn wouldn’t reveal the exact amount, but that didn’t matter. Norman wouldn’t budge, even if there were enough zeros to make his jaw drop.

“He’s absolutely available now,” Hearn told Chris Mannix on his show, Boxing with Mannix and Mora. “We made them an offer last week. We even said to them, if you are taking that fight in Japan, let’s lock the fight in for after that. October, November, December and they came back and said, 'We don’t want to talk about any other fight until we have this fight.'”

Hearn is fairly reserved. Getting him to show too much emotion isn’t likely. However, when it comes to Norman, Hearn is irate. At one point, he believed that Norman was a brave soul, a true fighter's fighter,and one who would accept all challenges.

Now, Hearn’s perception of him has completely changed.

“We can’t rely on Brian Norman to chase any kind of greatness.”