During a recent interview with American Hall of Fame boxer Andre Ward, Terence Crawford spoke on a multitude of topics but none moreso relevant than the crippling influence of promotions within the sport of boxing that has prevented many great fights from occurring over the past several years. Crawford’s relationship with General Entertainment Authority (GEA) chairman and organizer of Riyadh Season, Turki Alalshikh, was also mentioned with Alalshikh’s growing influence in boxing now aiming to remove the crippling corruption that has partially been perpetuated through promotional outfits.
Terence Crawford (40-0, 31 KO’s) is set to fight next week on Saturday, August 3rd against Uzbekistani WBA super welterweight (154 lbs) champion Israil Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KO’s), but managed to spare some time in the build-up to his 154 lbs debut by referring to some of the obstacles he faced.
During Crawford’s interview with Andre Ward on Ward’s “All The Smoke Fight” podcast, Crawford expounded on the general perception on free agent or non-contracted fighters [such as himself] while also explaining how GEA chairman Turki Alalshikh has stamped his authority on boxing by enticing different promotions to work together under one banner; specifically through Riyadh Season which is set to organize/sponsor its first event outside of Saudi Arabia through the upcoming August 3rd Crawford-Madrimov event.
“All the promoters always talk bad about me behind closed doors. Why? Because I don’t follow suit with everybody else. All the promoters say, ‘Well, Terence Crawford can’t sell, Terence Crawford is bad for business’, Terence Crawford this, Terence Crawford that―all so much negativity, but when you look at my numbers compared to their fighters that they’re trying to push, it’s night and day.
“That was a good thing, that [Turki Alalshikh] has seen that with his own eyes and he just was like, ‘[I’m going to] do this, and [I’m going to] do that with him. [As] a matter of fact, since you [promotions] always got something negative to say about them [free agents]. I’ll take a fighter from [your] promotional company, put them on the undercard’. And you can’t do nothing about it. And what [do you] do? [You] follow suit, and [you] do what? Kiss the ring. So now who’s in charge?
Terence Crawford remains one of the most vivid examples of how promotions refuse to make the fights necessary due to a deep-rooted fear of their stable’s fighters potentially losing. As Crawford’s own career partially illustrates, this has been evident through his stint in the welterweight (147 lbs) division where a fight with Errol Spence Jr (28-1, 22 KO’s) had remained absent for years until both fighters were either close to or in their mid-thirties.
The prevention of “big fights”, usually between two highly popular fighters or two fighters of significant ability, now appears to be diminishing due to the influence of GEA head Turki Alalshikh, who has organized several notable events through Riyadh Season that has provided both highly competitive and entertaining fights throughout the past two years, including the historic heavyweight (200+ lbs) undisputed bout between Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14 KO’s) and Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KO’s).
Diving further into the boxing landscape, Crawford went on to elaborate on how he believed promotions have contributed to widespread corruption in the sport of boxing brought by self-interest and greed, and how that appears to be changing under the leadership of Turki Alalshikh.
“He [Alalshikh] is just bringing the excitement back to boxing the way it should be, where all the promotions should be working together instead of trying to compete with each other and try to stall out this promotional company because they got all the 135-pounders, and [that] promotional company that only got two.
“You know, so they [the promoters] are like, ‘Oh well, we [are not] going to worry about them [other promotions and fighters], we’re going to [keep] all of our fighters in-house and keep all the money, but the fans want to see all these guys fight and I think what he [Alalshikh] is doing right now is mixing the game up.”
Terence Crawford
While Turki Alalshikh has already managed to break down barriers in the sport by cultivating more cooperation between promotions, even signing “partnership” deals with promotions for further collaboration efforts to produce the best possible fights for boxing fans, there might be future plans in the works to establish a boxing league or tournament. According to Crawford, any venture that would band promotions together would naturally see the sport of boxing progress further.
“I like it [the purported idea of a boxing league/tournament], I think it’s going to work because all the control from one promotional company is excluded. Now it’s everyone in one basket. You [a top fighter] going to fight him [another top fighter]? Then you got to fight him, and you have to fight him [too]. I like that idea, it brings more excitement to boxing, and it brings all the best fights together, so we [boxers] don’t have to go ‘Oh well, my promoter is not going to make this fight happen because we want this to happen in a couple years so we can build up’.
“Nah, let’s get it done now, let’s go. I like the idea. I don’t know how he’s [Turki Alalshikh] going to do it, but if he does it, it’s going to be something good.”
Terence Crawford
Unfortunately, the sport of boxing is still too unorganized, corrupt and detached for it to progress to any substantial extent without any help. However, if Turki Alalshikh does have the mind, and most importantly the finances, to see this project through, boxing may just become one of the most popular sports over the next couple of decades―perhaps even on par with other prevalent entertainment sports such as association football.
