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Well, this played out exactly as I’ve been saying it would for more than a year now. Turki Alalshikh has made his move to take over boxing, using Dana White and the TKO group as day-to-day henchman for the takeover.
On Wednesday, it was announced that the Saudi Arabian figurehead and TKO had joined forces to form a new promotional company to “reimagine the sport of boxing.” The announcement brought out a sense of dread in people who are familiar with the shady work of both the Saudis and Dana White as well as those who care about the sport of boxing and/or are not easily cucked.
This Axis of Evil alliance was a necessity for the Saudi plan to own boxing, since it became painfully clear to the presumed overlords that all roads to doing so had to run through the United States, the place where the largest flow of boxing revenue still runs.
The Saudis recently spent an obscene amount of money signing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to a four-fight deal with that need in mind. Prior to that, they nudged Shakur Stevenson and Jaron Ennis into deals with the Saudi-friendly Eddie Hearn. And, before all of that, Terence Crawford was bromanced into Riyadh Season Global Ambassador status by Turki.
Even the cash-filthy Saudis have an aversion to losing money and everything they’ve touched thus far in their boxing coup has run deeply in the red. Their recent Last Crescendo card in Riyadh– aggressively billed by their hired media propagandists as “The Greatest Card In The History of Boxing”– reportedly generated only 45,000 buys in the US, even at a reduced $25 price.
So, to make their plans work, they need more and more of a US presence.
Turki is now using his purchased Ring Magazine property to promote The Ring-branded fights in the US, with names such as Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, and Rolly Romero tied to the initiative.
White and TKO will take over from there.
This has not been an entirely bloodless coup, though.
A lawsuit filed against Top Rank by former “fixer” Billy Keane, making allegations ranging from fraud to racism to dealings with international drug lords, was dropped into the public discourse the week before the announced Saudi/TKO partnership. The timing of the civil suit seems too convenient to overlook, as it came at the perfect moment to spotlight an alternative to the old school shady boxing world and, maybe more important, poison the well when it comes to Top Rank finding a new broadcast deal when their contract with ESPN ends this summer.
All of this comes at the tail end of about two years of Turki, using Saudi funds, buttering up the sport’s top promoters, dropping loads of money at their feet, overpaying fighters for their allegiance, and gradually working his way into the hands-on mechanism of the sport.
And, with two feet already in the door, Turki seems to be one thobe-shrug away from pulling the sport entirely away from those who helped him get the level of control and influence he has today.
Just minutes after flexing his muscle with his TKO deal, he spoke of his desire to “crush” his competition. By the following morning, he was issuing a veiled ultimatum to Matchroom’s Dmitry Bivol, who may or may not be entertaining the idea of foregoing a slated third bout with Artur Beterbiev in favor of the WBC’s recently mandated title defense against David Benavidez.
The WBC interim light heavyweight champ, Benavidez, by the way, was flown to Riyadh by Turki for the February 22 rematch between Bivol and Beterbiev as the fighter with next dibs on the winner.
“I am no longer interested in Bivol-Benavidez and I will not bid on it,” Turki said Friday, via his tightly-controlled Ring Magazine propaganda outlet. “I think Bivol knows who has delivered for him and who hasn’t. My advice to Bivol: don’t be late because every day something changes.”
Well, so much for no more “my side of the fence” talk. If anything, Turki seems to be erecting an unscalable wall and, quite likely, leaving many of those who worked with him behind it.
“I don’t think [it’s the end of our relationship], but If he has [moved on], thank you very much,” Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn told Boxingscene, when asked about Tuki’s apparent shift from partner to competitor. “I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve made a lot of money and our fighters have had a great opportunity…We don’t rely on Saudi Arabia to run our business. But we enjoy it…I think His Excellency is a smart man. He knows how good I am…If everybody wants to work together, great. If there’s a fight all of a sudden, I’m up for that as well.”
Hearn’s diplomatic tone will change considerably if this plays out like some of us see it playing out– aggressively and with Turki using the fighters he’s scraped off the top of boxing’s biggest promotional stables as weapons against the promoters who built them into assets.
Dana White isn’t exactly hiding the fact that he’s not planning on working with any other boxing people.
“I think the sport of boxing is so broken that it needs to be built from the ground up again,” White said at the UFC 313 post-event press conference on Saturday, when asked about cooperating with current promoters for his new boxing project.
When the reporter followed up with the question of whether he sees the possibility of someday sharing a stage with De La Hoya and Bob Arum, working together, White was definitive.
“Let’s hope not…Never say never, but that is not what I plan to do.”
There’s also the matter of boxing’s sanctioning bodies, who’ve worked with Turki and the Saudis and, in the case of the WBA and WBC, took big-money payouts to help facilitate the rise of the boxing newcomers. They may also be cast outside the Saudi/TKO wall.
It’s worth noting that in the press release issued regarding Thursday’s kickoff press conference in New York for the Canelo Alvarez-William Scull bout in May, the IBF is the only sanctioning body mentioned, despite the Mexican star’s status as the reigning WBA, WBC, and WBO super middleweight champion. And that’s because Canelo reacquiring the IBF belt stripped from him last year is the only possible angle to justify what will be an obscene mismatch.
It’s not hard to envision the path forward for the Turki/Saudi/TKO promotion, where Turki’s Ring Magazine belts are used as the only belts in their “reimagined” boxing world.
Nobody will weep for the double-crossed promoters and sanctioning bodies who helped put boxing into such dysfunction where it could be outright stolen and shipped abroad so easily and so quickly. Actually, some might find the turn of events quite humorous. I know I’ve been getting a chuckle from it since I posted about this very thing happening last year.
Per my Notes from the Boxing Underground piece, titled Basting The Turki At Bud’s Coming-Out Party:
“The funny part is that all of these people– promoters, managers, media– are actually putting themselves out of business by playing lapdogs to the Saudi money. They are making themselves irrelevant to their own business by handing over their power to an entity that has no loyalty to them and to a person in Turki, who has already tipped his hand that full power is his ultimate goal.”
But, as laughably ironic and karma-heavy as this takeover is, there’s a real ominous undertone. As I pointed out on social media, the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. Boxing is going from hustlers, grifters, and small-minded operators hobbled by myopia to truly sinister world stage characters who will be motored by a high-powered labor-crushing machine.
Some may say that it’s way too early to dismiss this new league/promotion as a bad thing. But how much, really, can you expect from an unholy alliance between a wannabe despot like Turki, who’s jailed Twitter users for critical tweets, and a company that pays fighters 18 cents on the dollar and whose CEO has spoken wistfully of repealing the “harmful” Ali Act?
Expect things to get ugly and messy when the boxing establishment realizes that they’ve signed a deal with the devil and that the devil is now coming to collect.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com
