Turki Alalshikh is boxing's judge, jury, and executioner
Jake Paul, Nakisa Bidarian, Eddie Hearn, and Anthony Joshua. What could go wrong?
Those opposed to the rise of His Excellency have about six months to mount an opposition plan to stop his complete and total control of combat sports.
The Kingdom now has a viable path to accomplishing the unthinkable.
The center of gravity in boxing is currently controlled by Turki Alalshikh and everyone else is grabbing bread crumbs.
There were four big fight events this past weekend, and I happened to be one of the few gluttons who watched all of them.
There was the PFL Cape Town fight with Dakota Ditcheva announcing a brand new contract with the promotion. There was UFC 318 in New Orleans with Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight drawing an $8M gate. There was Manny Pacquiao’s return to Las Vegas for PBC. All were respectable bouts.
But none of these fights compared in magnitude to Turki Alalshikh’s Wembley Stadium extravaganza featuring Oleksandr Usyk pummeling Daniel Dubois.
There was an unmistakable feel of stone-cold control at ringside. There was Turki Alalshikh, arms folded, emotionless, as Usyk punched his way into the record books. As the crowd was roaring and screaming with every concussive blow, Turki quietly surveilled the scene with the action unfolding in front of his face.
Whatever Turki Alalshikh wants, Turki is going to get, and no one is going to stop him. He wants Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul next. He wants to pay big money to see Jake Paul get demolished in order to get rid of a “headache.”
"I am not against what Jack (sic) Paul is doing in boxing. It's good for boxing to have a young generation. I am against some kinds of fight he do. I want to tell you an example and surprise. I am thinking me and him to doing him against Joshua now. Joshua, if he just destroy him, it would be good for me. The headache of Jack Paul would go from my mind. If Jack Paul wins, I would know that Joshua is finished and Jack Paul deserved to be [ranked] and deserve to have a future in boxing, right?. In this situation, I want it 99/1. Jack Paul accepted. Next week, I will talk with Joshua about it."
Not since my old PRIDE days with famous yakuza “sandpaper” boss Hiromichi Momose have I witnessed full-throated cartel-style fight politics in action.
PRIDE was an extremely successful and dominant promotional machine in Japanese fight sport, with massive ratings on broadcast television. Everyone wanted to see and be seen at PRIDE fights. Outsiders wanted a part of the action, politics be damned.
What people didn’t see in public were the out-of-control political wars. Powerful bosses were fighting amongst each other to gain control of PRIDE. When Hiromichi Momose lost control of the PRIDE machine, there was no public announcement. It just happened.
Saudi politics are no different than the old yakuza wars seen in Japanese fight sport. There are different and very powerful factions aligned with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. His enforcer, Turki Alalshikh, is deeply invested in combat sports and DAZN. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, head of the Saudi PIF, was at cage side for UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden. He is involved in LIV Golf.
The only thing the business world sees right now is Kingdom cash. They want in, consequences be damned. A lot of business leaders in American sports are paying close attention to Turki Alalshikh’s moves. They’re just trying to play catch-up on who this guy is and see if he’s a man they can do deals with.
The difference between PRIDE in 2005 and combat sports in 2025 is that we are dealing with Heads of State as fight promoters. They are calling the shots using ungodly amounts of public cash to buy whatever fights they want to produce. Politicians can be petty. They can do whatever they want at this moment in time.
For Western fight fans, this is an unfamiliar concept to navigate and appreciate the historical scope of. When a dictator or enforcer, or president of a country, says they want something done, it gets done.
And when a fan or a critic starts trashing that Head of State? You just made yourself a big target. Especially if you are talking trash on Twitter.
This isn’t the 1990s or even the immediate aftermath of a TSA/Patriot Act surveillance era. In 2025, there are all sorts of tools for OCD-riddled Heads of State to track down their critics and erase them. Learn any lessons from the fate of Alexander Litvinenko?
Behind all of the fear and loathing are (perceived) threats of retribution. If you’re a media member not already aligned with TKO or Team Turki, chances are that your bosses aren’t going to look very favorably upon you voicing criticism when Turki or one of his allies trashes a loud-mouthed fighter. Job security, especially in these horrible conditions of global media consolidation, is a big deal. Are you going to criticize a Head of State if it could cost you your job and prevent you from putting food on the dinner table or paying your utilities?
Some of the rumored threats circulating in the past week regarding negative campaigns against certain content creators and media personalities are the same kinds of threats I used to see when the yakuza had a death grip on Japanese fight sport.
I was constantly being scouted by various actors who would harass other gaijin in the country regarding any sort of information on my background or whereabouts. The paranoia was real. I avoided contact with certain people in order to protect them. My contemporaries who were living in Japan full-time were in significantly more danger. Imagine if the yakuza had software like Palantir, Pegasus, or Megvii at their disposal.
Westerners don’t think that this kind of cartel-level fight politics could ever surface in their own country in 2025. They also didn’t think Heads of State would end up becoming fight co-promoters. They never imagined Ari Emanuel’s world of massive government contracts and sovereign wealth fund financing.
There’s a price tag that comes with that kind of public policy, and fight fans are in for a very rude awakening.
The success of Turki Alalshikh buying what he wants, when he wants, in boxing is grabbing the attention of some important decision makers in American sports. Little do they know what surprises are in store for them, but I have a sneak peek of coming attractions.