Saudi boxing chief confirms plans for groundbreaking boxing league
HE Turki Alalshikh has confirmed his intentions to build a boxing ‘super league’ in the coming years.
The Saudi boxing chief, current chairman of the country’s General Entertainment Authority, has had a revolutionary impact on the sport in recent years staging huge events around the world.
He has brought promoters together such as Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren to try and improve the quality of cards and create the spectacles that have often fallen short in the past due to boxing politics.
Reports emerged in June that HE Alalshikh was looking to create a new boxing ‘super league’, monopolising the sport by bringing all of the promotional companies together in a deal that is estimated around $4 billion [£3.03 billion.]
And during an interview on talkSPORT’s White and Jordan on Monday, he confirmed these intentions.
“We have a plan for the future to have something like a league,” he said.
“We don’t discuss about the belts until now. But in my opinion around 68 world champions is a crazy number.”
Boxing has faced regular criticism for the number of belts in the sport, with four main organisations including WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO.
There are currently 17 weight classes recognised by four organisations, which sees 68 world champions in the sport.
Many of the entities also have ‘interim’ title holders, ‘regular’ title holders and ‘franchise’ title holders which has become increasingly difficult to enforce and understand for fans.
Many fights are often prevented from happening for the undisputed crown, with mandatory challenges regularly called according to each governing body’s rankings.
It often has seen fights break down, with fighters often instead ordered to face challengers as opposed to fellow champions.
3
3
But now under the guidance of HE Alalshikh, fans appear to be seeing the biggest fights of all, including Tyson Fury’s recent defeat to Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight titles.
He has even made further fights in other weight categories, including the upcoming card headlined by the undisputed clash between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol on October 12.
It is anticipated that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will to continue to invest heavily in the sport in the coming years, and a ‘super league’ could be it’s most successful venture yet.
It would be a particular success, given it could some of the biggest promotional stables brought together including Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Bob Arum‘s Top Rank.
Boxing has been facing heavy competition from the world of MMA, where promotion UFC has effectively monopolised the sport.
It has become hugely popular with combat sports fans and threatened to overtake boxing with it’s mostly even matchmaking and more competitive cards.
But in an increasingly-challenging environment, Alalshikh believes his vision will help revive boxing particularly in the pay-per-view market.
The number of belts has been an outspoken problem for fighters and experts in the sport, with boxers often unhappy with the hefty sanctioning fees they have to fork out to fight for titles.
Floyd Mayweather has been a particular advocate for less belts and has regularly insisted it is a problem that needs addressing in the coming years.
He said: “The WBC, the WBA, the IBF and the WBO, you all have to clean this s**t up. You all have to clean this up.
“This is bad for boxing. Ain’t such thing as no super champion.
“You guys are just taking extra money from all these fighters, getting extra money from sanctioning fees. And this goes for my company as well.
“We gotta clean this sport of boxing up. This s**t, this don’t look good.
“When you look on TV now, everybody’s a champion. You see all these fighters posing with a belt.”
Boxing WhatsApp channel
