On this nook of the Universo Pugilistico is my bulging, bulbous, aching sack and the gooey, salty fact contained inside. So…sit again, shut your eyes, pull again your hair, and prepare for this week’s cash shot of knowledge. This week we have now feedback/questions concerning boxing individuals promoting themselves out to the Saudis.
Idiot me As soon as, Disgrace on You. Idiot me Twice, Disgrace on me?
First, hope you and the household are doing nicely. Hold preventing the great struggle for boxing.
Second, a clever man as soon as stated, when a person tells you who he’s, you higher imagine him. Turki has LITERALLY informed and proven Eddie, Warren, Arum, and Oscar what he’s going to do. YET, they elected to proceed to work with Turki. They need to be operating for his or her lives, however their not. Why?
– BIG Rob
Hey Massive Rob.
Thanks.
The brief reply is that these individuals are grifters and that’s all they know.
They’re so hyper-focused on chasing the short buck that they are going to see nothing else. They’re like mosquitoes drawn to bug zappers. They gotta chase that mild, even when it means getting fried right into a crisp.
Grifters additionally imagine that they’re untouchable, that they’re gonna get this subsequent rating after which fear about every part else later. I’m certain all of those guys have the identical ideas about working with Turki, who has, actually, arrange a company to interchange them and stated he plans on crushing them. They’re going to make the cash they nonetheless can with him whereas working via present contracts after which hope to be one of many few boxing individuals allowed to remain within the Saudis’ good graces.
I feel they are going to discover out quickly sufficient that Turki and the Saudis should not actually into truthful play and that they’ll must put in some critical work to maintain their companies alive via this.
However they might have given up an excessive amount of floor already.
Again to the Paywalls
PBC is perhaps in place, as a result of they at present have a broadcasting cope with a good American firm in Amazon. Whatever the lack of occasions final calendar 12 months, they nonetheless placed on probably the most profitable playing cards stateside. To date in 2025 their playing cards have been probably the most profitable stateside as nicely. Which suggests they’re nonetheless tapped in with the American shopper and their model remains to be recognizable.
The humorous factor about this Turki/UFC/WWE deal is that everybody thought that every one the promoters who have been working with Riyadh Season have been onto one thing particular. Conversely, nobody is speaking about how they obtained performed and suckered into permitting their fighters to struggle on a banner that was in talks to dump them proper into the Atlantic. What number of fighters does GBP, High Rank and Matchroom nonetheless have beneath contract? What number of fighters are nonetheless loyal to these firms? What number of fighters are keen to struggle beneath these banners whereas on DAZN? These are the most important questions that the media fail to ask. As you talked about, everybody thought this was the top of PBC. Nonetheless, I even heard boxing pundits questioning why PBC hadn’t obtained on board with Riyadh Season. Are you able to think about what is going on on contained in the places of work of promoters who labored handedly with Riyadh Season? I am certain they’re scrambling to try to construct again up their US operations.
The most important clowns of this all are Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford. It does not matter how a lot cash they’re getting from Turki. They are going to look silly with Dana White holding up their arms over the following two years. I might like to know whether or not or not Canelo and Crawford have been conscious of the UFC/WWE partnership. In the event that they did know, it solely makes them look extra silly.
From a perspective of branding and advertising and marketing I see an epic failure on behalf of this new boxing enterprise. When it is all stated and executed. We’ll return to the paywalls! I actually do not see Dana White and Nick Khan resonating with the boxing neighborhood. I could not take the Riyadh Season playing cards critically, now throw UFC and WWE within the combine and it even appears to be like worse!
– Na’-il Rahman
Hey Na’-il.
As I discussed above, all of those guys are grifters and don’t know find out how to deviate from their cons. A bizarre quirk within the character of a grifter, although, is that additionally they are usually suckers. Their unchecked greed usually results in them falling sufferer to different grifters. That was undoubtedly the case with, nicely, nearly everybody in boxing who let themselves be groomed by Turki Alalshikh and the Saudis.
I perceive the fighters falling beneath the spell. They must give attention to getting as a lot cash as they will in as brief a time frame as doable.
However the promoters, sanctioning our bodies, and media? They’re imagined to be invested within the lengthy recreation, however they turned out to be the simplest to hook.
All of the alphabets and the media needed to lose was their credibility, which was at .001 anyway. The promoters, nonetheless, may lose every part.
As you have been saying– with whom will the fighters’ loyalties lie when the Saudis make their ultimate transfer and start absolutely operating reveals beneath their very own banner? The promoters have let Turki make direct offers with their fighters and construct a rapport. They’ve even let Turki, who has no boxing background, matchmake for his or her fighters.
There’s little doubt about it, they are going to lose a lot of their expertise. And good luck attempting to take the Saudis to courtroom.
Particularly humorous/tragic/mind-boggling is Oscar De La Hoya who, as soon as once more, may have chunk of his expertise pulled away from him as a result of he’s too dumb (or impaired) to know what’s occurring together with his personal enterprise. In case you keep in mind, simply over a decade in the past, Oscar got here to find that a lot of the expertise he had been selling through Golden Boy, was not really certain to a promotional contract. That vital error of negligence led to nearly all of his roster– together with names equivalent to Errol Spence, Deontay Wilder, Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, and Shawn Porter, amongst many others– strolling 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 suppose they care about what they appear like. They needed the cash and so they obtained it. However, at a time once they may’ve been true leaders within the sport and made a stand for the well-being of future generations of fighters, they selected to not.
So, if this all goes the place I imagine it might be headed– a Saudi-based/Dana White-led boxing monopoly with lowered UFC-style fighter pay rates– Canelo and Crawford needs to be remembered because the sell-outs they’re.
I feel you might be proper, although. Turki appears to have fumbled the ball on the three-yard line. There’s a disconnect with the way in which he’s dealing with US audiences and he could very nicely die on that hill with regards to his boxing ambitions. And, no, slapping Dana White’s face on the product– a man who has spent everything of his UFC life belittling and demeaning the game of boxing– gained’t be a optimistic.
And, oh yeah, the paywalls might be there.
It’s amusing how Turki is getting glazed by media (that he owns) and by gullible followers for reducing the worth of pay-per-views, when reveals of the same high quality was free (or a part of a minimal ESPN+ charge) earlier than Turki began gobbling up the game.
Obtained a query (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The most effective of the perfect will get included within the weekly mailbag section proper right here at FightHype. Ship your stuff right here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.
