NEW YORK — Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, controls the biggest purse strings in boxing and said he plans to use that power to fix a sport he told ESPN is “broken.”
The exclusive interview took place last month following the formal announcement of Alalshikh’s first boxing event outside Saudi Arabia, a stacked card headlined by ESPN’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, Terence Crawford, challenging Israil Madrimov for the WBA junior middleweight title on Aug. 3 in Los Angeles. Alalshikh laid out his plans for boxing and detailed an upcoming slate of star-studded cards.
Crawford vs. Madrimov is presented by Riyadh Season — an annual state-managed sports and entertainment festival that attracts sponsorships from some of the region’s most prominent companies — which kicks off in October in Saudi Arabia’s capital. The title fight is poised to showcase the kingdom’s commitment to the sort of promotion, pomp and circumstance Alalshikh believes has been largely missing from boxing.
“We carefully planned our activities for the last six months,” Alalshikh said. “We are spending the money to [commercialize] our season and at the same time to test the market and know all the secrets about the market. And now we have a lot of information and we have our own studies and we think from what we tested in the last six months, there is big opportunity in boxing. … But you must improve the market. You must fix all the problems.”
Alalshikh has looked to restore that prestige with the sort of deep, competitive undercards that are commonplace in the UFC but rare in boxing. The Aug. 3 card might feature the deepest support of undercard fights in years.
Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz defends his WBA junior welterweight title vs. Jose Valenzuela in the co-feature while Tim Tszyu fights Vergil Ortiz Jr. in a slugfest between two of ESPN’s top junior middleweights. A pair of former heavyweight champions are also slated to compete: Deontay Wilder vs. undefeated Jared Anderson along with Andy Ruiz’s return vs. Jarrell Miller. Top talent David Morrell fights Radivoje Kalajdzic and two-time Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz meets Antonio Moran.
“[Boxing] is broken, but I think we don’t need to get everything back together,” Alalshikh said. Indeed, boxing sat atop the global sports landscape for much of the 20th century. But with the best matchups being relegated to pay-per-view, the sport’s lack of centralized governing body and the minimization of pugilism at the Olympics, the sport has waned in popularity since.
“We need to improve it with something else, we have a strategic vision where we have identified untapped opportunities and are committed to market improvement.”
Saudi Arabia hosted the Anthony Joshua-Ruiz heavyweight title rematch in December 2019, the first major boxing event in the Kingdom, and als
