After one of the darkest promotional weekends in the modern history of boxing, what’s next for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with their new TKO Boxing partners?
We have questions. Lots of them. And we have a lot more questions after reading Thomas Hauser’s Guardian article detailing the politics behind the Times Square fiasco.
After burning through tens of millions of dollars to produce two of the worst boxing events and three of the most historically inactive fights ever (according to CompuBox), you have to start asking whether or not someone is intentionally sabotaging Turki Alalshikh’s boxing venture.
This is not what the Kingdom paid for. The Kingdom wants to buy the best public relations imaginable. They want great, positive media headlines. They want to buy the best fights in combat sport and look good in the process.
What we’re witnessing is cash being incinerated in real time.
This past weekend’s boxing events in Times Square and Riyadh were a huge loss of face for Turki Alalshikh and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was a terrible slap in the face to someone whose grand plan is to buy the biggest, baddest boxers and promoters in combat sports.
This week’s edition of The MMA Draw Podcast on Substack raises some very uncomfortable questions about TKO’s future motives with their upcoming joint boxing venture with KSA. Will WME Group be able to turn the public and politicians against life-changing fighter pay in boxing by citing this past weekend as a turning point to shut off the spigot?
If there is one thing we’ve learned under TKO, it’s that decisions that happen in UFC get copied for WWE and vice versa. We expect the same trends to happen under TKO Boxing.
And in this high-stakes affair, we’re also paying close attention to how much more cash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is going to be able to spend if Crude Oil prices stay below $60 a barrel. It will have an impact moving forward on fight financing.
Will Netflix and other big media outlets get cold feet about TKO Boxing after this weekend’s disconcerting double-header?
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At the end of this week’s podcast, we have some words of wisdom for our subscribers on how to find your voice in an increasingly antagonistic climate.
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