H.E. Turki Alalshaikh, Chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority and currently the boxing’s most important investor, has announced on social media that a super fight between Terence “Bud” Crawford and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is no longer in the cards.
[On the status of Canelo appearing on a big-money Riyadh Season show]
“I heard what Canelo said that he respects me but doesn’t like the way we do business. As for him respecting me, it doesn’t matter to me if he does or not. As for the way I do business, I know why he doesn’t like it, because I only target big fights at fair prices, so of course anyone who likes easy fights won’t like that. And I know how he feels after losing to Bivol, so he’s been looking for easier fights ever since. Also, I’m not the one who’s afraid of fighting Benavidez or Crawford. Therefore, I knew he was wasting our time and making excuses with big amounts of money that can’t be paid. So I’m continuing my way to make big fights that serve the boxing world, and he’s on his way to making easy show-only fights.”
[On upcoming plans in the works]
“Just wrapped up an important meeting now with my team, planning for the upcoming fights that we will make for 2024-2025. I decided to disregard the Canelo fight, as I don’t want it anymore. Instead, I will be focusing for the US market with bigger fights, especially for the legend Crawford. Additionally, I will support making fights for Boots, Haney, Shakur, Ortiz, Anderson, Benavidez, Zepeda and more, regarding Tim Tszyu, there’s something unclear with the communications from his team with our team, so I believe I will reconsider his situation. And for the rest of the world, definitely, I am focusing on Riyadh Season card, Wembley edition 21st of September (AJ vs. Dubois) and depending on the results and the results of Riyadh Season’s opening card (Bivol vs. Beterbiev) on the 12th of October, I will build the card for the rematch of Fury vs. Usyk on the 21st of December and another big card on the first quarter of 2025. Stay tuned.
