As Turki Alalshikh and Saudi Arabia have continued an attempt to take over high-level boxing, it has left traditional promoters scrambling to plan how they’ll navigate a new landscape. At 93 years old, Top Rank chairman Bob Arum has seen it all in the sport and believes he can find ways to work with other promoters, something that has long been a problem in boxing.
Arum told BoxingScene that when it comes to Premier Boxing Champions, “I’ve never had any real problem doing business with them.”
That statement may be a little out of touch with reality given Top Rank and PBC have historically struggled to come together on big fights, notably failing for years to make a fight between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. when Crawford was under the Top Rank banner and Spence fighting for PBC. But new challenges call for new approaches.
In addition to Alalshikh — who recently announced a new boxing promotion headed by TKO, the company that owns UFC and WWE — trying to grab talent and control of the sport, the Saudi chairman of the general entertainment authority has moved those major events primarily to Saudi Arabian soil.
Arum views events being held in Saudi Arabia as another key thing that needs to be addressed, claiming boxing is better off when big events are held in the United States.
“With the time difference, doing the fights outside the U.S. shouldn’t be something that is done with great frequency,” Arum said. “Every once in a while? OK. But the fans are here and America deserves a robust fight schedule here in the U.S., just as the U.K. fans deserve a busy schedule over there. If you don’t do good fights in the U.S., then boxing will die and wither away. So I’m absolutely in favor of trying to make the best fights we can here.”
Alalshikh’s entry into boxing remains one of the biggest stories in boxing, but how promotions like Top Rank and PBC can weather the storm is of equal importance to what boxing will look like in the coming years.
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