Turki Alalshikh has already made a huge impact on boxing but now he has revealed a shock new project that could shake up the sport once more.
Alalshikh has already been behind some of the biggest fights in recent years. He has hosted the likes of Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia, has seen Tyson Fury fight Francis Ngannou, put Joshua in with Ngannou, and hosted an epic night of heavyweight boxing in December with Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker, Zhilei Zhang and many more all competing.
He now has Fury’s undisputed fight with Usyk coming up on May 18 in Saudi Arabia, then the Matchroom versus Queensbury 5 on 5 event on June 1.
The undisputed light heavyweight showdown between Artur Beterbiev and Dimitri Biviol takes place later in the year following Beterbiev’s injury, while Terence Crawford will be stepping up in weight and challenging Israil Madrimov for the WBA junior middleweight title on August 3 in Los Angeles.
It will be Alalshikh’s first event to be hosted Stateside, but the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority is not done yet, with many more plans in the works.
In a new message posted on X, Alalshikh laid out what he sees as the problem with the current pound-for-pound rankings and then said he will be making moves to fix it.
“[Naoya] Inoue is a great boxer, but [Terrence] Crawford is the pound-for-pound number one. I don’t know how the ranking works or if there’s a clear criteria, but it seems like there are some personal opinions and inaccuracies involved. I believe that boxing needs one entity to evaluate with transparency and credibility. Soon, I will support a project for that matter…!”
Taking the two examples given by Alalshikh, Inoue is a two time undisputed champion much like Crawford, while he is also a champion in four separate divisions and has had one undisputed title defence by the age of 31.
Crawford is a three division champion who has not yet defended any of his undisputed titles by the age of 36, which for some means he should be lower down the pound-for-pound list.
These fantasy rankings are just that and Alalshikh might find it hard to work out how to assess such claims more fairly, but if anyone can, he is like to be the man.
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