In this corner of the Universo Pugilistico is my bulging, bulbous, aching sack and the gooey, salty truth contained within. So…sit back, close your eyes, pull back your hair, and get ready for this week’s money shot of wisdom. This week we have comments/questions regarding boxing people selling themselves out to the Saudis.
Fool me Once, Shame on You. Fool me Twice, Shame on me?
First, hope you and the family are doing well. Keep fighting the good fight for boxing.
Second, a wise man once said, when a man tells you who he is, you better believe him. Turki has LITERALLY told and shown Eddie, Warren, Arum, and Oscar what he is going to do. YET, they elected to continue to work with Turki. They should be running for their lives, but their not. Why?
– BIG Rob
Hey Big Rob.
Thanks.
The short answer is that these people are grifters and that’s all they know.
They are so hyper-focused on chasing the quick buck that they will see nothing else. They are like mosquitoes drawn to bug zappers. They gotta chase that light, even if it means getting fried into a crisp.
Grifters also believe that they are untouchable, that they’re gonna get this next score and then worry about everything else later. I’m sure all of these guys have the same thoughts about working with Turki, who has, literally, set up an organization to replace them and said he plans on crushing them. They’re going to make the money they still can with him while working through existing contracts and then hope to be one of the few boxing people allowed to stay in the Saudis’ good graces.
I think they will find out soon enough that Turki and the Saudis are not really into fair play and that they’ll have to put in some serious work to keep their businesses alive through this.
But they may have given up too much ground already.
Back to the Paywalls
PBC might be in a good position, because they currently have a broadcasting deal with a reputable American company in Amazon. Regardless of the lack of events last calendar year, they still put on the most successful cards stateside. So far in 2025 their cards have been the most successful stateside as well. Which means they are still tapped in with the American consumer and their brand is still recognizable.
The funny thing about this Turki/UFC/WWE deal is that everyone thought that all the promoters who were working with Riyadh Season were onto something special. Conversely, no one is talking about how they got played and suckered into allowing their fighters to fight on a banner that was in talks to dump them right into the Atlantic. How many fighters does GBP, Top Rank and Matchroom still have under contract? How many fighters are still loyal to those companies? How many fighters are willing to fight under those banners while on DAZN? Those are the biggest questions that the media fail to ask. As you mentioned, everyone thought this was the end of PBC. Nonetheless, I even heard boxing pundits questioning why PBC hadn’t got on board with Riyadh Season. Can you imagine what’s going on inside the offices of promoters who worked handedly with Riyadh Season? I’m sure they’re scrambling to try and build back up their US operations.
The biggest clowns of this all are Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford. It doesn’t matter how much money they’re getting from Turki. They’re going to look foolish with Dana White holding up their hands over the next two years. I’d love to know whether or not Canelo and Crawford were aware of the UFC/WWE partnership. If they did know, it only makes them look more foolish.
From a perspective of branding and marketing I see an epic failure on behalf of this new boxing venture. When it’s all said and done. We’ll go back to the paywalls! I truly don’t see Dana White and Nick Khan resonating with the boxing community. I couldn’t take the Riyadh Season cards seriously, now throw UFC and WWE in the mix and it even looks worse!
– Na’-il Rahman
Hey Na’-il.
As I mentioned above, all of these guys are grifters and don’t know how to deviate from their cons. A weird quirk in the character of a grifter, though, is that they also tend to be suckers. Their unchecked greed often leads to them falling victim to other grifters. That was definitely the case with, well, just about everyone in boxing who let themselves be groomed by Turki Alalshikh and the Saudis.
I understand the fighters falling under the spell. They have to focus on getting as much money as they can in as short a period of time as possible.
But the promoters, sanctioning bodies, and media? They’re supposed to be invested in the long game, but they turned out to be the easiest to hook.
All the alphabets and the media had to lose was their credibility, which was at .001 anyway. The promoters, however, could lose everything.
As you were saying– with whom will the fighters’ loyalties lie when the Saudis make their final move and begin fully running shows under their own banner? The promoters have let Turki make direct deals with their fighters and build a rapport. They’ve even let Turki, who has no boxing background, matchmake for their fighters.
There’s no doubt about it, they will lose much of their talent. And good luck trying to take the Saudis to court.
Especially funny/tragic/mind-boggling is Oscar De La Hoya who, once again, will have a good chunk of his talent pulled away from him because he’s too dumb (or impaired) to understand what’s happening with his own business. If you remember, just over a decade ago, Oscar came to discover that much of the talent he had been promoting via Golden Boy, was not actually bound to a promotional contract. That critical error of negligence led to almost all of his roster– including names such as Errol Spence, Deontay Wilder, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, and Shawn Porter, among many others– walking out the door to the fledgling Premier Boxing Champions for what amounted to a pennies-on-the-dollar settlement.
As for Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford? I don’t think they care about what they look like. They wanted the money and they got it. But, at a time when they could’ve been true leaders in the sport and made a stand for the well-being of future generations of fighters, they chose not to.
So, if this all goes where I believe it could be headed– a Saudi-based/Dana White-led boxing monopoly with lowered UFC-style fighter pay rates– Canelo and Crawford should be remembered as the sell-outs they are.
I think you may be right, though. Turki seems to have fumbled the ball on the three-yard line. There’s a disconnect with the way he’s handling US audiences and he may very well die on that hill when it comes to his boxing ambitions. And, no, slapping Dana White’s face on the product– a guy who has spent the entirety of his UFC life belittling and demeaning the sport of boxing– won’t be a positive.
And, oh yeah, the paywalls will be there.
It’s amusing how Turki is getting glazed by media (that he owns) and by gullible fans for lowering the price of pay-per-views, when shows of a similar quality used to be free (or part of a minimal ESPN+ fee) before Turki started gobbling up the sport.
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