Sometimes I feel like I could scream at the top of my lungs, burst into flames, with bees flying around me and still not be heard. Damn, who am I kidding, I feel like this ALL THE TIME.
And, you know what? I was right.
I am under no illusions that my voice is actually being heard. Nearly two decades of this boxing media adventure has taught me that, for the most part, it is NOT.
I don’t say the “right” things, in the “right” way. I’m not good at socializing. I’m not good at flattery. I despise polite etiquette. I offend people. I’m not particularly ambitious about advancing my career….or, I should say, I’m not interested in making concessions to advance my career. I don’t give free passes to anyone. If you love me now, I can almost guarantee you’ll hate me to the core at some point…because I’m not interested in anything other than telling the truth and bringing some measure of fairness to an often aggressive public discussion.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m usually right.
And I will be on the right side of history when it comes to my views on the Saudi takeover of boxing and the over-involvement of Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority.
Since I scathingly criticized Turki in Notes from the Boxing Underground last Monday, much has happened that proves I was right about the proposition that boxing makes a deal with the devil that so many boxing organizations have blindly and lustfully rushed into.
Recent events have shown a connection between Alalshikh and the Saudis in an attempt to resolve the issue surrounding BoxRec and establish their own archives, apparently through the now-dormant Fight Fax and the WBA, who attempted to endorse Fight Fax at their recent WBA Asia conference.
I’m going to be lazy and just quote myself or someone else from an article I wrote on BoxingNews.co:
“Matthew Brown of Brunch Boxing has been on the whole story, detailing how FightFax.com went live on April 24 of this year, the same day the WBA announced its ‘partnership’ with Alalshikh and the Saudis.
Brown also wrote about a reported attempt from Alalshikh in June to buy Boxrec.com as ‘part of a broader effort to reorganise the sport’ [after a May 6 tweet that expressed doubt over the accuracy of BoxRec’s ranks].
With things going as they are, it certainly gives the impression that the Saudis, unable or unwilling to buy BoxRec, have decided to replace them, using the WBA as an alternative facilitator of record keeping.”
I also quote from that article:
“At this point, this particular WBA/Saudi/FightFax situation will have even more far-reaching implications, given the recent Saudi influence in the sport.
Saudi Arabia currently has “partnerships” with promoters Golden Boy, Top Rank, Matchroom, Queensberry, streaming service DAZN, and the WBA and WBC. Through those “partnerships,” much of the boxing media will also be caught in the conflict.
In the worst case, these conflicts will lead to boxing’s equivalent of a constitutional crisis, where a sport that is already divided and often at odds becomes even more divided and at odds. Even “official” records are no longer necessarily considered accurate. Anything reported by the mainstream boxing media must be treated with suspicion.
Damaging intelligence sources is the first step in any hostile takeover, and it’s straight out of the How to Be a Dictator 101 textbook. In a sport like boxing, such a thing would strip the last shred of integrity from an already largely untrustworthy sport.
(I reached out to Fight Fax to clarify their funding and overall chain of command, but have yet to hear back from them. Of course. And I don’t expect a response. Who am I to ask such questions? Why can’t I comply like Dougie?)
But with boxing businessmen making easy money from Saudi “partnerships” and fans distracted by the enticing promises of big fights, no one considered the long-term impact of handing over the keys to a murderous regime that is beyond all accountability, using the sport as a notorious money-laundering operation.
Despite the concerns about the future of boxing, there’s something a little ridiculous about all this, which is essentially a tribute to a chubby guy whose actual knowledge of the sport is about that of a casual fan.
And, yes, a real man (and a real boxing fan) should be outraged at the idea of Vergil Ortiz Jr. being forced to rematch Serhii Bohachuk after beating him on Saturday night and getting a shot at Terence Crawford, just because Turki said so (after Turki proposed the Crawford fight in the first place). “It was a great fight. I thought it was a draw,” Alalshikh told FightHubTV after the Ortiz-Bohachuk fight.
“No, Crawford, we have a thought about that. Ortiz, we can support a rematch like this.”
And that means, since there are all these monkeys dancing in front of him, he will get his wish.
Yeah, this monkey doesn’t really like to dance. I’m more of a “shit throwing” monkey. So expect some messy trading from me in the coming weeks/months/years – even if very few people actually bother to listen.
Have something you’d like to give Magno? Send it here: [email protected]
