“Ring around the Saudis/Pocket full of Riyals/Ashes, Ashes, We all fall down”
Last week, the most talked-about story among boxing media hit the open air. Saudi Arabia, spear-headed by point man Turki Alalshikh, purchased Ring Magazine from Oscar De La Hoya.
The Saudi acquisition of the Bible of Boxing (Do we have to call it ‘The Qur'an of Boxing’ now?) creates all kinds of ethical issues for a property that had already been bankrolling itself via conflict of interest.
But going from Oscar De La Hoya ownership to an ownership widely known for its human rights abuses and violence against journalists is the ethical equivalent of going from one foot inside a porta potty toilet bowl to floating face-first in a swirling sea of raw sewage.
The Ring was purchased to legitimize and publicize a Saudi boxing initiative that has invested an obscene amount of money into creating a business dynamic that reeks of illegal collusion and makes a mockery of free market business ethics.
In terms of how it affects the sport itself, expect to get some short term gains in the form of a few good fights in exchange for a deeply compromised, incestuous operating model that can’t lead to anything but massive corruption. Eventually, it’ll also be bad news for fighters looking to negotiate open market deals in what will be a closed market where most everyone is in partnership with one central controlling entity who can cap purses and set terms at will.
In short, this is how I summed it up at the re-opened Boxing Tribune:
“[Turki] Alalshikh has leveraged himself into a position of supreme power in the sport, with firm control of a still-growing boxing endeavor that oversees promotion, matchmaking, management, event hosting, broadcasting, sanctioning, and now media– with every tentacle of that multi-armed beast referring back to him and executed according to his whims, even if technically managed by intermediaries.”
And, again, Ring Magazine and its corresponding website are there to legitimize and normalize it all and to essentially drown out criticisms that may come from other corners of the boxing media world (not that there’s a lot of dissent to the Saudi boxing takeover among gig-hungry media).
The Ring’s rankings and championships will also be co-opted by Turki and the Saudis for their own purposes, most likely as a tool to motor their proposed in-house league. Ring Magazine is no stranger to selling off their rankings for deceitful purposes (Search: Ring Magazine Scandal), but this new venture is beyond Don King slipping them envelopes of cash. They would be fully owned by a murderous monarchy with a history of hostility towards media and a product to sell that depends on their compliance.
This Saudi hostile takeover of boxing was nowhere near as hostile as it should’ve been because everyone just sort of rolled over-- including Ring Magazine
But, fret not freedom lovers. Just wait until the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) gets their meaty mitts around the neck of this dilemma! They’re gonna have something to say about their brothers being co-opted and asked to play concubine to a regime that murders and imprisons journalists.
I mean, it’s right there on their website, in their mission statement, between the swirling 80s MacPaint BWAA logo and the photo of Gennadiy Golovkin snuggling with a bloody Gabe Rosado. Their “purpose is to foster the highest professional and ethical standards in boxing journalism.”
So, in you’re mother-humpin’ face, you Khashoggi-dismembering, free speech-violating murder junkies! The mighty, mighty scribe-tones are coming to have a word or three with you.
Except...umm...the BWAA President works for, umm, Ring Magazine...and so does their Vice President...and also a number of their full members.
So, yeah, maybe the free speech cavalry won’t be riding in to save the day…
I fully realize that this “call to arms for ethics and decency” is an exercise in futility. These media people are the same ones who get compliant like a roofied co-ed over a quality media buffet dessert section and I’m expecting them to hold firm on principles when looking at the kind of money they’ve only seen in Floyd Mayweather All Access videos? Hell, you could buy, like, 200,000 moist double-fudge media buffet brownies for the kind of money the Saudis will be paying these guys!
And, let’s be real. The ship has sailed when it comes to actual boxing journalism that means something. Ring Magazine won’t be all that different post-Saudi from the way it was pre-Saudi. Just lots of stuff that could’ve been pulled from a promotional company’s publicity department. Seeing who they’ve already appointed as the bossmen of the online and re-initiated print versions, it’s pretty clear that they won’t be deviating from the promotion-as-news strategy.
But, still…
Ring Magazine, for what it’s worth, is the closest boxing has to a historical boxing journalism archive and watching it soiled over and over again has been rough. Seeing this final nail hammered into its coffin hammers home the reality that boxing will never get the media it deserves and so desperately needs.
Yeah, reporting on the signings of upcoming fights and all the minutiae of boxing, like purse bids, mandatories being ordered, and even the public bickering of boxing personalities are part of the picture. But they’re not by a long shot the most important duties of the boxing press. What really matters are the stories that may step on toes and ruffle feathers. It’s the stuff that will hold feet to fire, force big fights into existence, and help the fighters compete in a fair, safe-as-possible environment. That’s the stuff that isn’t happening now and most definitely won’t happen under a Saudi-run media effort.
Ultimately, signing oneself over to the Saudis is an issue of conscience. I can see the argument of “I’m not really doing anything significant now, so what would I be selling out?” I can also understand the draw of big, big money for the easy job of staying on an overlord’s leash. Hell, if someone offered me six-figures to play media lap dog, I might be tempted to do it for a couple years to build some sort of retirement nest egg. This boxing writing thing, after all, is my only job and gigs are hard to come by. Plus, I am perpetually broke as fuck.
But the vast majority of boxing media does this as a secondary job, little more than a cool hobby that, if they’re lucky, pays enough to cover the cable bill and buy some groceries. They don’t NEED to be selling out. They don’t NEED to play junior publicist.
If their presence in boxing is all about their love for the sport and love of writing, they could be infinitely more productive outside the establishment media currently (and entirely) owned and/or funded by promoters and other compromising business interests. And they would most definitely not be signing on to the job of running interference for the Saudi regime.
But, as we’ve seen, ethics and resolve are not necessarily traits associated with those drawing paychecks from boxing– even among those who are supposed to be the voice of ethics and resolve.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com