When the formation of TKO Boxing was announced, and complemented by the influential Turki Alalshikh saying, “I trust this league in a short time will crush everything,” questions surrounding what both potentially meant for the established promoters already working with Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority inevitably and immediately followed.
Eddie Hearn and Matchroom, with the rematch between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jnr in 2019, were the first to bring one of the year’s highest-profile fights to the Gulf country. They did so again with the rematch between Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk in 2022; neither contest took place in Riyadh, but Riyadh, regardless, and largely because of the first steps taken via both heavyweight title fights, has since threatened to become the centre of the boxing universe.
If Matchroom – in the aftermath of George Groves-Callum Smith in 2018 and Amir Khan-Billy Dib 10 months later – were the first to truly take advantage of the opportunities presented by Saudi Arabia’s attempts to sportswash its reputation, then Hearn’s long-term rival Frank Warren and Queensberry Promotions were perhaps the first to recognise the extent of them. Hearn and Warren, as alike as they are different, unexpectedly willingly worked together to maximise some of those opportunities, following more than a decade-long bitter promotional cold war.
Some of the world’s most appealing fights – two between Usyk and Tyson Fury, and two between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol – have therefore since been staged in Riyadh. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the world’s highest-profile fighter, will fight there next, on May 3 against William Scull.
The Ring Magazine, and with it the publication’s prestigious titles, has also been bought by the GEA, which, to a lesser degree than with Hearn and Warren, has also worked with Golden Boy Promotions and Boxxer. Each promotional organisation was being paid a premium to cooperate in delivering further sought-after fights; Queensberry have even since signed to leave the broadcaster TNT Sports to join Matchroom and Golden Boy at DAZN.
That TKO Boxing – BoxingScene understands that the start of any potential boxing league isn’t being planned before 2027 – is expected to succeed Top Rank at ESPN almost certainly complicates the political landscape that, for a period, had fewer personal rifts and barriers. The presence of Dana White, the divisive figure at the top of UFC, and the WWE’s Nick Khan – both will lead TKO Boxing alongside Alalshikh – who both have near-monopolies in mixed martial arts and wrestling complicates that landscape further. Little suggests that the power they appear to be seeking will be shared.
Hearn, however, having so recently announced fights for the promising Dalton Smith and the popular Johnny Fisher that resembled those so consistently delivered by Matchroom before their departure from Sky Sports to DAZN – well before the association with Saudi Arabia that again transformed the picture surrounding Matchroom – insists that he is unconcerned about the development. To listen to him speak was to question whether he was close to as positive about it as he suggested, and whether he was, indeed, protesting too much. To listen to him speak was regardless also to be reminded of how much he may be resisting saying for the benefit of the bigger picture of Matchroom’s interests, and of the realities of what is required to have any kind of staying power in what so often has represented the most thankless of professions and that demands more than just a sense of brashness and significant sums of money to succeed.
“I was over the moon,” he told BoxingScene of the announcement. “I’ve known about it for, probably, not far off a year. The last three months we were just, kind of, waiting for it to be announced. But it’s honestly nothing, really, to do with me. If someone wants to create a league – a new concept – anyone’s free to do whatever they want.
“We could have created a league but don’t really want to create a league, if I’m honest. I’m quite happy doing what we’re doing. I’ve had a lot of people phoning me up, ‘Did you hear what was said?’. I’m pretty chilled, really. We have our Riyadh Season events; our Ring Magazine events; you’ve got the WBC grand prix coming up. They’re doing so many different things, and this is just another thing that they’re doing. I don’t know enough about it to tell you what it is – all I read was it’s a league that develops talent, and I know the talk about the one belt, but I think TKO will be in boxing with the league and maybe with other standalone events as well.
“I look at it a bit differently to other people. I think how good it is for the sport that someone like Dana White’s looking at boxing, saying, ‘We need to be in boxing’, and I disagree with Dana and Turki in the sense of, ‘Boxing’s broken’. I don’t think it is at all. I think we can improve, and we can make it potentially more streamlined as a product, but I think boxing’s red hot, and with Turki coming in he’s made it even hotter.”
If a cynic might have been tempted to read into the fact that, unusually, he called Alalshikh by his first name instead of “His Excellency”, as Alalshikh typically demands, Hearn later went on to do so. What is perhaps most unusual for the promoter is the fact that he once was the newest promotional figure in the then-settled British fight scene – Boxxer’s Ben Shalom is yet to achieve parity with the younger Hearn’s impact – and followed that by promising to conquer the US, and yet in 2025 almost represents a veteran likelier to prioritise preservation instead of seeking to expand.
Top Rank are the longest survivors – Bob Arum has convincingly outlasted his bitter rival Don King – of boxing promotion, and Warren, once shot by a masked gunman, has accurately been described as a “survivor” with such regularity that to do so almost represents a cliche.
The same Warren first competed with the young Hearn via the limited resources of BoxNation, and after years of the bitterest of rivalries may even have the potential to prove Hearn’s greatest ally if between them they feel concerned about TKO Boxing’s emergence. Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy may seem less likely, but could have the potential to prove another. TKO Boxing appears to want to reshape the entire ecosystem instead of to simply find a profitable place within it, but within that ecosystem will encounter at least formative bonds that previously didn’t exist.
“Those relationships, they may strengthen,” Hearn said. “But at the moment, anything that suits our fighters, our company, I’m all in for. Riyadh Season has done that. We believe it will continue to do that as well. But so has working with Frank, and so has working with Oscar. I’m talking to Oscar. Before all this, I never spoke to Oscar De La Hoya once. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. [Ben] Shalom. All of them. The lines of communication are open, and I think it’s really interesting times. You’ve just got to stay focused and stay smart.
“I faced probably even more [resistance] in the UK [than the US]. Don’t forget there was that famous picture of everybody that hated each other, which was Frank Warren, Ricky Hatton, Frank Maloney and Barry McGuigan, saying, ‘We’re going to fight back’. That [as it did back then] gives you even more confidence to know that everybody’s got their back up.
“In the US, I probably didn’t play it perfectly, but I played it my way of going in and just fucking being a loud mouth. Now, with this, it all depends how it plays out. If His Excellency, Dana, want me involved in the league or there’s an opportunity, yeah, we could be all in. If anybody wants to fight, I’m up for that too. But I don’t think it’s going to go that way. I get the feeling we’re all moving forward across one big push for boxing, but the resistance – it’s exciting, if I’m honest. Whenever there’s resistance from people to let you in, that’s the whole game. If there isn’t that resistance, winning’s not really as sweet.”
It was tempting to interpret Warren’s reluctance to conduct the same number of interviews he typically would, at the final press conference for Nick Ball-TJ Doheny, as a determination to avoid questions surrounding TKO Boxing, but he told BoxNation: “We’ve had a relationship [with Alalshikh] since day one. Queensberry [recently] set all of the press conferences and everything up – all that needed to be done – in New York. We’ll do the same we’ve done for all the shows in Riyadh. That’s our position. It’s been great for us. We’ve got a great relationship with him – nothing’s changed at all – and I’m looking forward to it.”
Alalshikh has also since said: “This league is a project not against anyone. Not against the commission; not against the promoters. This is my opinion and this is from my side. It is a project that will have space in the market and we will still see the four belts and the commissions and the promoters. The market is huge and no one can delete anyone from this market.”
He had, however, since the announcement of his latest venture, appeared to not want Alvarez to promote his sanctioning body titles at the first press conference for his fight with Scull – one counter-intuitively promoted as for all four titles – and also spoken about wanting to “squash” Alvarez’s fight with Edgar Berlanga via a UFC promotion on the same night in Las Vegas in September 2024 before ensuring he won a bidding war for his following fight. If Alalshikh often appears uncertain about exactly what it is he wants, how much more certain could be Hearn?
“Maybe it brings the whole sport together,” he said. “Maybe it’s a league that starts in a way and gets bigger and bigger, and then we become involved, and Queensberry become involved, and maybe it brings the sport together. Some people get their back up by comments, but I’m a little bit more chilled. If we never did anything with Turki Alalshikh again, we revert to doing our 35 shows a year globally and having a great business like we did. We don’t want that, because we’ve loved working with him, and we think there’s a lot of potential, and it’s been very fruitful for us and our fighters, but we’re a business well beyond just doing Riyadh Season events. But we’ve enjoyed it and we think there’s massive potential, and I see that relationship continuing to grow, to be honest. Whether there’s a conversation in time about Matchroom and the league – until we know what it is…
“Anyone that has a TV contract; anyone that has fighters; anyone that has ability and substance, I don’t think it really affects them. I actually look at it the other way. It just makes boxing bigger. We’re seeing Belfast completely sold out [for Paddy Donovan-Lewis Crocker]. Dalton Smith, I know it’s only just under 3,000, sold out. [Conor] Benn-[Chris] Eubank, 60,000, sold out. Johnny Fisher-Dave Allen [II], sold out. Viewing figures are going up. I actually look at it the other way. Boxing’s red hot. Dana, in boxing, is going to make the whole ecosystem grow.
“We’ve got our dates; we’ve got our broadcast deals, and we carry on. But again, I don’t really know the substance of it. Outside of one belt and this kind of stuff, what I read didn’t really give a lot away. We’ll see how it plays out.”