There’s a new mantra in championship boxing. Try speaking to anyone from that world – a big-time promoter, trainer or fighter – and before you can get a word in, they’ll say something like: ‘I’d like to thank His Royal Highness King Salman Abdulaziz al-Saud, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and, of course, the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, His Excellency Turki Al al-Sheikh.’ In the last few years, the Saudis have spent hundreds of millions, more than anyone else can offer, to stage the world’s greatest bouts on their holy sand. They’re trying to take over golf and football too. Everyone in the fight business is getting rich, and no one wants it to end.
One of the upcoming Saudi-sponsored fights is between the British Anthony Joshua and the Cameroonian Francis Ngannou. At the ‘Kick-off Press Conference’ in London on Monday, everyone was being very nice about their Saudi paymasters. We were four storeys underground, in a dusky, concrete-walled, 2,000-capacity rented nightclub. Joshua, Ngannou and their promoters were on a stage at the front. There were free pies and chips and burgers and sandwiches at the back. The world’s media in the middle. No one mentioned ‘sportswashing’. ‘We would like to thank the hosts and the people who made all of these huge fight nights that we’ve seen over the last couple of years possible’, said Josh Denzel, a TV presenter who was running the press conference. ‘His Royal Highness King Salman…’ He finished the exaltations, and the crowd applauded.
Of course ‘vision’ and ‘passion’ are nothing without ‘money’
Turki Al al-Sheikh stood on an elevated balcony at the back of the room, looking down on everyone. He wore sunglasses, a dark robe and gilet, and a red and white shemagh. He stood on a box to make himself taller. Al-Sheikh is in charge of Saudi Arabia’s entertainment agency (who say they ‘drive the industry to proactively contribute to the fulfilment of the national goals of a Vibrant Society and a Thriving Economy’), but more importantly he’s a close friend of Mohammed bin Salman. In 2017, when MBS deposed Mohammed bin Nayef to become Crown Prince, al-Sheikh was there with him at the King’s palace in Mecca. MBS apparently likes al-Sheikh’s loyalty and sense of humour, and has given him a fat chequebook to sort out Saudi Arabia’s international image.
‘You’re talking about someone who has an incredible passion for the sport of boxing’, said Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, about al-Sheikh at the press conference. ‘Someone that’s unbelievably knowledgeable.’ Al-Sheikh is putting on fights that no one else in boxing can make happen, Hearn said. Late last year, the Saudis got Joshua to sign a deal to fight Deontay Wilder, something that the boxing establishment had been trying to do for years. (Wilder later dropped out.) Next month the Saudis are putting on Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk. The winner gets all four of the heavyweight championship belts and becomes the first undisputed champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999. The fight was meant to happen at Wembley Stadium, but negotiations collapsed last year. It was al-Sheikh’s ‘vision’ and ‘passion’ that made fights like this happen, Hearn told the press conference.
Of course ‘vision’ and ‘passion’ are nothing without ‘money’. Fury was set to get £30 million, and Usyk £13 million, for their Wembley fight. Now it’s in Saudi Arabia, the two are splitting a purse worth around £120 million. The boxing commentariat say the Saudis are in it for themselves – they don’t really care about the sport. But fighters say they can’t turn down the money. In 2019, as Joshua was about to fight for the first time in Saudi Arabia, Hearn told a reporter in Riyadh: ‘I was driving up and down the road last night thinking of all the criticism I’ve been getting. And I passed Gucci, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Versace and Ralph Lauren.’ Everyone else works with the Saudis, so why can’t he?
Sport is meant to be fair and honourable, and Joshua is meant to be a role model and an inspiration. A cut above the compromised capitalists. That’s the tale, but boxing has always been grubby. The Rumble in the Jungle, George Foreman vs Muhammad Ali, was arranged by a Nazi-sympathising middleman (Fred Weymer) acting for a dictator (Mobutu Sese Seko) using the financial backing of tyrant (Muammar Gaddafi). Tyson Fury, today’s champ, sells The Furious Method: Transform your mind, body & goals, a self-help book, but he’s also had dealings with Daniel Kinahan, an Irish gangster wanted by the FBI. ‘What a man does in his own business is none of my concern’, Fury said a couple years ago. ‘I don’t do anything apart from box.’
Colin Hart, a boxing writer, was at the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, covering the fight for the Sun, and he was there at the press conference this week too. He dismissed the fawning over ‘His Royal Highness’ and ‘His Excellency’ – and talk of vision and passion – as ‘bollocks’. The niceties were for show, but hardly new. Boxing has always just been showbiz with blood.
Comments