PBC on the Mend? Free Fights Coming, Money Flowing Again?

It came as no surprise on Tuesday when the IBF junior middleweight title fight between defending champ Bakhram Murtazaliev and former world titlist Tim Tszyu was officially announced. The 154 lb. title clash had been news for three weeks already, before being made “official.”

It was also no surprise that the October 19 title bout would land in Orlando, Florida, at the Caribe Royale Resort as the main event in the long-promised kickoff to the “free” portion of the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) Amazon Prime deal. All of that, also, was news long before it was made “official” with Tuesday’s press releases.

The only surprise in all of this is that, well, things are actually moving once again at the Al Haymon-founded company after some serious stagnation and a trickling away of talent that suggested some were starting to abandon ship.

There’ve also been other rumblings from the PBC side of the fence.

For instance, it’s being reported that 26-year-old Cuban sensation David Morrell Jr., fresh off winning the vacant “regular” WBA lightweight title versus Radivoje Kalajdzic at the August 3 Riyadh Season Saudi card in Los Angeles, will be topping another “free” Prime card from The Armory in his adopted hometown of Minneapolis.

The pushing forward of the PBC machine– with these bouts and other rumored events featuring Gervonta Davis, David Benavidez, and Sebastian Fundora before the end of the year– is being attributed to the return of Haymon to the helm of the company after a prolonged absence due to undisclosed reasons, as reported by Alan Dawson at World Boxing News.

The announced Tszyu-Murtazaliev IBF title bout could even, possibly, have a co-main event as Tszyu’s promoter No Limit Boxing won Tuesday’s purse bid for the IBF middleweight champ Janibek Alimkhanuly’s defense against Andrei Mikhailovich.

Beating out Alimkhanuly’s promoter, Top Rank, by just $1,000 ($351K to $350K), No Limit Boxing now has the promotional rights to the fight and could, conceivably, place the budget pickup world title bout on Tszyu’s undercard, October 19, although that may be pushing the boundaries of how quickly a fight like that could move from purse bid to opening bell.

The shocking purse bid development even pushed the defending IBF and WBO 160 lb. champ to issue an incredulous “I have no words! What is this @toprank @BobArum @CarlMoretti?”

But whether Alimkhanuly-Mikhailovich finds its way on to the Tszyu-Murtazaliev PBC show is just an interesting side note to what appears to be a “PBC is Back” storyline.

There are tons of questions that remain about the company and their Amazon Prime deal which, honestly, has been pretty disappointing thus far despite a small handful of well-booked shows that may or may not have been actual “keep the doors open” successes.

It’ll be interesting to see, for instance, how a PBC, off autopilot, navigates the boxing waters with a Saudi Arabian shark prowling for chum. Almost everyone else– Top Rank, Golden Boy, Matchroom, Queensberry– has “partnered” up with the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, Turki Alalshikh. Will PBC be next?

There’s also the matter of finding suitable opposition for Gervonta Davis and David Benavidez, who both find themselves without true big-ticket foes at the moment. Similarly, will PBC be able to hold on to boxing cash cow Saul “Canelo” Alvarez when the only bankable in-house B-side for the Mexican star is the Canelo non grata Benavidez?

And what about old school PBC stalwarts Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, and the Charlo twins, who don’t seem the least bit fight-ready or fight-willing?

For now, there’s a PBC show on the 14th of this month, featuring Alvarez against Matchroom’s Edgar Berlanga, and there’s the October 19 Tim Tszyu non-PPV card. At the very least, that’s better than what the company had going on a month ago.