In a sit-down interview with DAZN’s Ade Oladipo, Turki Al-Sheikh offered his insight into the boxing world of today and his aspirations to make the biggest fights possible. Al-Sheikh, who is the currently the chairman of the Saudi Arabian government department of the General Entertainment Authority (GEA), has been tightly involved in boxing the past two years or so and has been sponsoring several large fights including the heavyweight undisputed bout between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.
From 2024 and onwards, Turki Al-Sheikh and the GEA appear to be planning an overt takeover of boxing with their latest ‘Day of Reckoning’ event on December 23rd seeing a plethora of well-known fighters fight on the same card. With the February 17 match between heavyweights Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury already arranged, and March 8 set to host a fight between Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou, Al-Sheikh is now looking forward to more fights that the boxing world have craved for.
In particular, the long-awaited undisputed bout between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol is now a valid possibility for the near future; especially since the latter appeared on the same December 23rd card that the GEA sponsored.
“Artur [Beterbiev] and [Dmitry] Bivol is huge, as a fan,” Al-Sheikh said during his interview with DAZN Boxing.
“Maybe in some regions they can’t garner a lot of pay-per-views, I understand this, and this is why a lot of promoters do not take a risk because it costs a lot, but we are willing to take the risk with them.
“The two of them, they’re okay. I want to see this fight. Everyone wants to see this.“
While money has always been a barrier that prevented the biggest fights from occurring in the past couple of decades, the GEA’s emergence in the sport has now resulted in the likelihood of these fights occurring more frequently. As is well-known, Saudi Arabia as a country has a high GDP and the GEA―as a government branch―has clearly benefitted from what appear to be limitless resources to stage these events.
For that reason, blockbuster fights appear to no longer be a barrier as long as the fighters are willing to step in the ring. With Al-Sheikh having clearly stated his intentions to stage a fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol on multiple occasions, the possibility of well-known American fighters competing against each other or other worthy competition has also not been excluded.
Gervonta Davis, and Devin Haney in particular, seem to be the American fighters Al-Sheikh is most interested in, which resulted in him sending a public message to Davis’ manager, Al Haymon, to be able to arrange a fight.
“I send a message now from you to [Al] Haymon, ‘let’s do a job, brother’,” Al-Sheikh stated during the interview.
“I want to see Haney in my country and I send a message from you to him, ‘I will try to do it in 2024’. Of course we want him [Haney] in my country. maybe those two against each other.“
Al-Sheikh’s ambitions might come to fruition this year, though it is still unknown how amiable Gervonta Davis and his team would be to fighting Devin Haney as they have already rejected an offer to fight him. However, with the GEA’s funds and the support of Saudi Arabia, there is a sense that the two Americans might settle their rivalry if they both receive the right amount.
There is more of a likelihood of the Beterbiev-Bivol occurring, though as Al-Sheikh explained during the interview, Beterbiev is a Muslim and such a fight would likely be staged following Ramadan which is set to be held in April of this year; providing the opportunity for the undisputed light-heavyweight match to occur in the summer of this year.
