Typically, it appears like I might be screaming on the prime of my lungs, on hearth, with bees swarming round me and I nonetheless wouldn’t be heard. Hell, who am I kidding, I really feel like that ALL of the time.
And, you already know what? I’m proper.
I’m beneath no grand delusion that my voice is de facto being heard. Almost 20 years into this boxing media journey has knowledgeable me that, for essentially the most half, it’s NOT.
I don’t say the “proper” issues, the “proper” means. I don’t community properly. I don’t schmooze properly. I disregard well mannered protocol. I ruffle feathers. I’m not notably bold in advancing my profession….or, I ought to say, I’m not keen on making concessions to advance my profession. I don’t dole out free passes to anybody. Should you love me now, I can nearly assure that you’ll hate my guts sooner or later…as a result of I don’t give a fuck about something apart from telling the reality and injecting some extent of equity right into a habitually and aggressively spun public discourse.
Make no mistake about it, although, I’m often proper.
And I’ll be on the correct facet of historical past in the case of my tackle the Saudi boxing takeover and the overbearing involvement of Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Common Leisure Authority.
Since my scathing Turki takedown in final Monday’s Notes from the Boxing Underground, extra has occurred to show that I used to be proper all alongside about this deal-with-the-devil boxing proposition so many boxing entities have blindly, lustfully dived into.
Current occasions have unfolded that draw strains connecting Alalshikh and the Saudis to an try and work round BoxRec and set up their very own record-keeping, apparently by way of the beforehand dormant Combat Fax and the WBA, which went out of their solution to endorse Combat Fax at their latest WBA Asia conference.
I’ll be lazy and simply quote myself quoting another person from a chunk I did at BoxingNews.co:
“Matthew Brown of Brunch Boxing has been everywhere in the story, detailing how FightFax.com was introduced again to life on April 24 of this yr, on the identical day the WBA introduced its ‘partnership’ with Alalshikh and the Saudis.
Brown additionally wrote of the reported try from Alalshikh in June to buy Boxrec.com as ‘a part of a broader effort to reorganize the game’ [after a May 6 tweet that expressed doubt over the accuracy of BoxRec’s ranks].
Given the best way this has all performed out, it definitely gives the look that the Saudis, unable or unwilling to buyout BoxRec, have got down to change them, utilizing the WBA because the facilitators of the file maintaining substitute.”
Additionally quoting myself from the identical piece:
“Within the current tense, this specific WBA/Saudi/FightFax scenario would have further-reaching implications, given the Saudis’ latest bought affect within the sport.
Saudi Arabia presently has “partnerships” with promoters Golden Boy, High Rank, Matchroom, Queensberry, the streaming service DAZN, and the WBA and WBC. By these “partnerships,” a lot of the boxing media would even be caught up within the web of battle.
In a worst case situation, these conflicts would result in the boxing equal of a constitutional disaster, the place a splintered and sometimes conflicted sport would turn out to be much more splintered and conflicted. Not even “official” data would essentially be taken as correct anymore. Something reported by the mainstream boxing media must be seen as questionable.”
Corrupting info-gathering assets is step one in any hostile takeover and it’s straight from the Learn how to be a Dictator 101 textbook. In a sport like boxing, one thing like that will strip the final shred of integrity from an already barely credible sport.
(I reached out to Combat Fax to make clear their funding supply and normal chain of command, however have but to listen to from them. In fact. And I’m not anticipating a response. Who the hell am I to be asking such questions? Why can’t I simply be compliant like Dougie?)
However with boxing enterprise folks making straightforward cash from Saudi “partnerships” and followers distracted by shiny guarantees of massive fights, no person is contemplating the long-term affect of handing the keys to a murderous regime that’s past all accountability, utilizing the game as a reputation-laundering outfit.
Issues for the way forward for boxing however, there’s simply one thing cuck-ish about all of this bought deference to, primarily, one chubby man whose precise working data of the game is on the extent of a daily fan, at finest.
And, yeah, an actual man (and an actual boxing fan) ought to bristle on the notion of Vergil Ortiz Jr. being pressured right into a rematch with Serhii Bohachuk after beating him Saturday evening and incomes passage to Terence Crawford, just because Turki stated so (after Turki proposed the Crawford struggle within the first place).“It was an incredible struggle. I believed it was a draw,” Alalshikh advised FightHubTV after Ortiz-Bohachuk.
“No, Crawford, we now have a thought of it. Ortiz, we may help to have a rematch like this.”
And meaning, since he has all of the monkeys dancing earlier than him, he’ll get his want.
Properly, this monkey ain’t a lot for dancing. I’m extra of a “hurl your turds” sort of simian. So, anticipate some messy commerce from me within the coming weeks/months/years– even when only a few persons are truly bothering to pay attention.
Bought one thing for Magno? Ship it right here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com
