Notes from the Boxing Underground: Selling Out Ruins A Vibe

Note to Readers: Due to circumstances beyond my control, this week’s Notes from the Boxing Underground wasn’t published in its usual Fighthype.com home. Instead, I’m sharing it here.

There is definitely a nobility in the art of boxing, a brutally beautiful glimpse into the human soul that no other sport can reproduce.

Even a farce of a manufactured money grab, like Saturday’s Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn catchweight clash, can showcase something special inside the competitors.

That’s why I fell in love with boxing and why I struggle to hold on to that feeling, even as the sport becomes increasingly more difficult to love.

At some point, though, too much bullshit becomes too much bullshit.

I mean, seriously, how can you claim to love this sport while overlooking the dark, ominous clouds that have surrounded it, turning it into a public relations tool for a murderous monarchy? How can you claim to love and respect the fighters if you willfully ignore the reality that those sold as “saving boxing” are, currently, making moves to amend the Ali Act, targeting ways to strip rights and freedoms from future generations of fighters?

If you don’t feel at least a little nauseous about so much of boxing and so much of its history falling into the hands of human rights abusers, slave traders, and worldwide sponsors of assorted other heinous acts, then I do question not only your “I love boxing” fandom, but also your humanity.

Those who regularly read this column wouldn’t have been too surprised by Friday’s outstanding piece in The Athletic on Saudi figurehead (and boxing/sports/entertainment bossman) Turki Alalshikh and his rise to power within boxing and beyond (“Special report: Turki Al-Sheikh and the two sides of boxing’s new king” [Subscription Required]).

Jacob Whitehead’s reporting was superior to mine and much more detailed, but everything covered in that piece has already been covered in my work— the Turki temper tantrums, the jail sentences for those who criticize him, his heavy-handed role in the Saudi coup of 2017, and even the pop singer who “disappeared” after running afoul of “His Excellency.”

I just had no idea that things were even worse than I thought.

In Whitehead’s well-researched special report, we hear of an entire prison wing devoted to those who’ve hurt Turki’s feelings and the assorted degrees of torture that take place behind those prison walls. We hear of masked enforcers snatching social media critics off the streets and taking them, blindfolded, to be strong-armed by Turki into rescinding their criticism.

And there’s just so much more. So, so much more.

It’s genuinely baffling how quickly people aligned themselves with someone they knew nothing about. It’s beyond frustrating that they stay aligned, even after they DO know the truth.

The counter will always be, “but boxing has always been associated with thugs, nefarious bosses, and notorious gangsters.”

Okay, yeah, but not like THIS.

The Saudi takeover of boxing represents a whole new level of evil– a worldwide evil where dictators, strongmen, terrorists, and malicious operators devoid of all accountability are brought into the fold. And these people will be hard to remove from the fold when/if boxing people ever come to their senses and stop turning tricks for blood money.

I keep waiting for the wave of resistance to all this craziness, but all I see are promoters, who’ve pretty much been shown that the ultimate goal in this game is to make them irrelevant, still kissing the ring and fighters, who should be noticing the subtle leashes being placed around their necks, still grabbing at the Saudi bag.

I also see a growing line of writers/reporters/media people eager to overlook anything and everything for a Saudi payday because, I guess, “it’s JUST boxing” and “nobody cares anyway.”

The Turki Alalshikh-owned, Saudi-motored Ring Magazine made this month’s digital version of their print edition free, so non-subscribers can now see the full roster of writers working for the benefit of the Saudi monarchy. The list of print edition writers, added to the website contributors, read like a roll call of those who really and truly don’t give a fuck about anything but a paycheck. Some of those individuals are well-known as corrupt and/or compliant shit heads, always on the take. Others are new (newish) to that career path.

We also have to talk about Yahoo’s Uncrowned, which sports deep Saudi ties as well and is unashamed to carry water for the ultimate benefit of the Crown Prince.

And let’s not forget those outside the Ring/Uncrowned Saudi realm, who also serve the cause of the monarchy by skirting around the nasty stuff and writing up Saudi/Turki/Ring events as if the dark clouds surrounding them were not a crucial part of the story. It’s absurd, almost like writing up World War 2 without mentioning those mean, disagreeable Nazis because, dammit, you just don’t want to dwell on the negative.

And, no, the peripheral negatives– like Turki/Ring Magazine denying credentials to Boxingscene reporters or the fact that the “fan-friendly” Turki is staging 3 pay-per-views in an eight day period– are not the MAIN negatives.

But my frustration with boxing media and their unwillingness to be brave, even when gifted the platform and freedom to do so, is an old, tired story. You’re not getting blood from a turnip or testicular fortitude from a eunuch.

So, what’s the point of all this, then?

I want this on the permanent record. I want people to know who sold out and why. I want people to know who professed to love the sport and its fighters, but sold it all out as quickly as they could for a few extra bucks.

And, over the long haul, I want people to know that none of this prostituting of oneself was necessary. Fights could’ve been signed, stories could’ve been told, money could’ve been made without selling oneself to Turki and the Saudis. The sellouts CHOSE to sell out.

They took the dirty money because, when the opportunity to sell out came their way, they said to themselves: “Fuck boxing, fuck the fans, fuck everything. I want to get paid.”

It’s important that people know that.

And I do this– all the enemy-making and cage-rattling and career self-sabotage– because, yeah, I still love boxing…even though I probably shouldn’t.

Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com