On this nook of the Universo Pugilistico is my bulging, bulbous, aching sack and the gooey, salty reality contained inside. So…sit again, shut your eyes, pull again your hair, and prepare for this week’s cash shot of knowledge. This week now we have feedback/questions concerning boxing folks 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 effectively. Hold preventing the nice combat for boxing.
Second, a clever man as soon as mentioned, when a person tells you who he’s, you higher consider him. Turki has LITERALLY instructed 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 Large 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 may see nothing else. They’re like mosquitoes drawn to bug zappers. They gotta chase that gentle, even when it means getting fried right into a crisp.
Grifters additionally consider that they’re untouchable, that they’re gonna get this subsequent rating after which fear about every thing else later. I’m certain all of those guys have the identical ideas about working with Turki, who has, actually, arrange a company to exchange them and mentioned he plans on crushing them. They’re going to make the cash they nonetheless can with him whereas working by means of present contracts after which hope to be one of many few boxing folks allowed to remain within the Saudis’ good graces.
I feel they may discover out quickly sufficient that Turki and the Saudis aren’t actually into truthful play and that they’ll must put in some severe work to maintain their companies alive by means of this.
However they might have given up an excessive amount of floor already.
Again to the Paywalls
PBC is perhaps in a great 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 yr, they nonetheless placed on probably the most profitable playing cards stateside. Thus far in 2025 their playing cards have been probably the most profitable stateside as effectively. Which implies they’re nonetheless tapped in with the American shopper and their model continues 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 acquired performed and suckered into permitting their fighters to combat on a banner that was in talks to dump them proper into the Atlantic. What number of fighters does GBP, Prime Rank and Matchroom nonetheless have underneath contract? What number of fighters are nonetheless loyal to these corporations? What number of fighters are keen to combat underneath 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 tip of PBC. Nonetheless, I even heard boxing pundits questioning why PBC hadn’t acquired on board with Riyadh Season. Are you able to think about what is going on on contained in the workplaces of promoters who labored handedly with Riyadh Season? I am certain they’re scrambling to attempt 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’ll look silly with Dana White holding up their fingers over the following two years. I would 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 mentioned and carried out. 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 significantly, now throw UFC and WWE within the combine and it even appears worse!
– Na’-il Rahman
Hey Na’-il.
As I discussed above, all of those guys are grifters and don’t know the way to deviate from their cons. A bizarre quirk within the character of a grifter, although, is that in addition they are typically suckers. Their unchecked greed typically results in them falling sufferer to different grifters. That was positively the case with, effectively, nearly everybody in boxing who let themselves be groomed by Turki Alalshikh and the Saudis.
I perceive the fighters falling underneath the spell. They must deal with getting as a lot cash as they will in as brief a time period as doable.
However the promoters, sanctioning our bodies, and media? They’re purported 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 thing.
As you have been saying– with whom will the fighters’ loyalties lie when the Saudis make their last transfer and start absolutely operating reveals underneath 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 may 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, could have a great chunk of his expertise pulled away from him as a result of he’s too dumb (or impaired) to grasp what’s taking place along with his personal enterprise. Should 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 truly sure to a promotional contract. That crucial error of negligence led to nearly all of his roster– together with names resembling 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 to be. They needed the cash they usually acquired it. However, at a time after 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 consider it may very well be headed– a Saudi-based/Dana White-led boxing monopoly with lowered UFC-style fighter pay rates– Canelo and Crawford must be remembered because the sell-outs they’re.
I feel you could be proper, although. Turki appears to have fumbled the ball on the three-yard line. There’s a disconnect with the best way he’s dealing with US audiences and he could very effectively die on that hill relating to his boxing ambitions. And, no, slapping Dana White’s face on the product– a man who has spent the whole lot of his UFC life belittling and demeaning the game of boxing– received’t be a constructive.
And, oh yeah, the paywalls will probably be there.
It’s amusing how Turki is getting glazed by media (that he owns) and by gullible followers for reducing the value of pay-per-views, when reveals of an identical high quality was once free (or a part of a minimal ESPN+ payment) earlier than Turki began gobbling up the game.
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