A week later, the boxing world still struggles to understand significance of Dana White, Turki Alalshikh partnership

A week ago, UFC CEO Dana White and Saudi businessman Turki Alalshikh sent shockwaves through boxing by announcing their plan to launch a new league. In the days since, the sport has been buzzing with speculation about what it all means.

Most still don’t get it because they’re married to a model that has failed for decades.

To grasp what’s really happening, think of boxing as a restaurant that has a prime location, but the food is awful and the service is worse. White and Alalshikh didn’t invest just to keep serving the same slop with the same lousy staff.

They’re tearing down the kitchen, hiring new chefs, and reimagining the entire dining experience.

This isn’t just a new promotion; it’s a fundamental overhaul of the sport.

It’s not going to be easy, which White would be the first to admit.

The massive financial investments Alalshikh and the Saudi Arabian government have made in boxing have given life to a sport that for decades has been teetering on the verge of collapse. 

Mega-bouts the Saudi money has financed like Oleksandr Usyk versus Tyson Fury, Artur Beterbiev versus Dmitry Bivol and Canelo Alvarez versus Terence Crawford have breathed life back into the sport and given its dwindling fan base some hope.

But that hope? It’s an illusion, because two or three big nights a year don’t make a thriving business.

Oh, about 99.9 percent of the active promoters cling to a broken, outdated system. They cling to a structure that’s pushed boxing from the mainstream to the fringes.

Three of the biggest and most successful of those promoters — Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom and Hall of Famer Frank Warren of Queensberry — have bent over backward in the last two years to appease Alalshikh, even at the cost of their own independence and, some would say, their dignity.

Their endless deference to him was humiliating. 

And yet, what did Alalshikh say last week in announcing the new deal? His comments made it clear the obsequiousness they showed did no good.

“I give the flag of boxing to [Dana White], the best man who can handle it,” he said. “He has a tough job now, but I’m sure he will be delivering to the people and the fans a magnificent league and get boxing great again.”

Interestingly, Alalshikh didn’t mention any of the three men he’s spent the better part of the last 18 months working with so closely.

And that’s because in his short time in the sport, Alalshikh came to understand that doing the same old thing is simply going to get the same old result. Boxing, as it stands, is shattered.

The problems are myriad, but let’s start by looking at the sanctioning bodies. None of them — the IBF, WBA, WBC, or WBO — invest a dime into the business success of the sport, yet their decisions dictate its success, or failure

Alvarez won the undisputed super middleweight title in 2021 by beating Caleb Plant to win the IBF title, the last of the four he didn’t own. In 2023, Crawford defeated Errol Spence Jr. to become undisputed welterweight champion. Last year, Usyk defeated Fury to win the undisputed heavyweight crown.

What happened in each case? The IBF forced the undisputed champion to surrender his newly won belt, ending their reigns as undisputed champions.

In the ultimate irony, Alvarez must now fight William Scull, the man who only holds the IBF title because it was stripped from Alvarez, on May 3 in order to be undisputed again when he faces Crawford on Sept. 13.

Things won’t change overnight just because White and Alalshikh teamed up. The old guard will fight back, and hard.

What will change is that the White/Alalshikh partnership will:• Bring quality depth to the undercard, instead of having them filled with 20-1 and 30-1 favorites facing no hopers.

• The television production and in-arena experience will dramatically improve.

• End fighters being forced to take crazy mandatories such as Alvarez versus Avni Yildirim.

• Aggressively market and promote the product with a professional staff.

Many fighters and their managers are going to be wary of White, and will shy away, at least at the beginning. The sanctioning bodies have been around for decades and aren’t just going to walk away because White has arrived.

Doing things the old way, though, got the sport where it is. De La Hoya, for instance, said he’s in favor of making the best fight the best. 

But when a fight with representatives for IBF super welterweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev approached De La Hoya for a bout with interim WBC champion Vergil Ortiz Jr., De La Hoya declined.

Why?

“Vergil just had two tough fights against [Israil] Madrimov and [Serhii] Bohachuk,” De La Hoya told Ring Magazine. “Anybody in their right mind knows that’s two tough fights. He needs a welcome-home type of fight against a  Top 10 kind of fighter. If you go straight into the fire, what are we going to do? Burnout Vergil? No. I have my plan, and that's why Golden Boy has been successful for so many years.”

So what he’s saying is he’ll put Ortiz into an easily winnable fight that he’ll charge fans top dollars to see, instead of putting Ortiz into what should be a competitive and fun bout versus Murtazaliev that will carry significance within the sport.

That’s the thinking and the tactics of the past, and it’s the process which has put boxing into such dire straits in the first place.

Alalshikh recognizes that’s not how things should be done, nor how White has done them. 

It won’t take long for the sport’s leeches to learn that, too.