Money is power. No two men in boxing are currently proving that more conclusively than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Turki Alalshikh.
If you can attract massive amounts of money, you hold power. Alvarez is about to get a $35 million guarantee to face Edgar Berlanga, a +800 underdog whom I wouldn’t see as a value play even if he was a +2000 underdog. Because he brings the money, Canelo can get away with taking a fight he can’t realistically lose and still get paid as if it’s a superfight.
That’s power.
If you can spend massive amounts of money, you hold power. Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, in effect the head of the promotional company that is becoming commonly referred to as “Riyadh Season,” is walking around with several books full of blank checks. The Saudi government is willing to overpay to make the fights Alalshikh desires happen, because it can. And from fighters to fellow promoters to broadcasters to media, people throughout the sport can’t get on that payroll fast enough.
That’s power.
Alalshikh has made clear that he’d like to toss one of those blank checks Alvarez’s way to get him in the ring with Terence “Bud” Crawford, who was recently appointed an “ambassador” for Riyadh Season. A man for whom money is no object is trying to find the price at which he can lock down a man whom money has also become … well, not no object, but not something he particularly needs.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the two most powerful men in boxing working together. They’ve stumbled into going head-to-head with each other first, and Alalshikh has perhaps fumbled the ball by daring to talk trash to Alvarez.
The Saudi money is making it possible for UFC 306 to take place at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Sept. 14, as Riyadh Season is sponsoring the mixed martial arts pay-per-view event. On the same date, about two miles away at T-Mobile Arena, Alvarez is fighting Berlanga, also on pay-per-view.
How much direct competition is there? That remains an open question. I’ve seen the number “5%” thrown around over the years, very unscientifically, to represent the boxing/MMA fan overlap. That sounds insignificant, but then again, if you have a card you expect to sell 500,000 PPVs, and 5% of that audience is unavailable, the difference between 500,000 and 475,000 isn’t nothing.
So UFC and PBC are competitors on Sept. 14. And Alalshikh, who to this point has resisted taking shots at boxers, who hasn’t fallen into that trap of insulting everyone in the sport not aligned with him, who has campaigned on a platform of unity, of using his country’s money to bring rivals together and make major bouts happen, is now starting to sound like a stereotypical boxing promoter and treating Canelo as the enemy.
“We will eat him,” Alalshikh said of Alvarez to ESPN.com.
Coming from the mouths of most promoters, that would be an unremarkable comment.
Coming from this promoter, whom some view as the man to heal all of boxing’s wounds, rooting for boxing’s flagship superstar to fail is … a choice.
Especially when Alalshikh has been so open about his desire to convince that flagship superstar to work with him next, and to make a fight that Alvarez has been consistently dismissive of to this point.
There are, to be fair, several fights to get through before Alvarez vs. Crawford can possibly become a reality. Crawford has to win this Saturday, on DAZN Pay-Per-View and on PPV.com, against Israil Madrimov. Canelo has to win Sept. 14 against Berlanga. And Canelo vs. Turki has to shake out in a way that doesn’t snuff out negotiations.
Then an Alvarez-Crawford fight can be discussed.
Although the two fighters are similar ages (Crawford 36, Alvarez 34), they’re at very different points of their careers in terms of motivation.
Crawford, locked in a three-way battle with Oleksandr Usyk and Naoya Inoue for recognition as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, still has aspirations. He shouldn’t need to prove anything more, but he carries himself as if some of his most major accomplishments — and corresponding major paydays — are still in front of him.
He desperately wants to fight Canelo, because the 168-pound champ is the ultimate challenge for a man just now moving up to 154, and because it would come with about 10 fights’ worth of cash all at once.
But Alvarez sure seems to have reached a point in his career where adding to his legacy does not motivate him. Before choosing Berlanga, he fought Jaime Munguia, Jermell Charlo, John Ryder, and retirement-ready Gennady Golovkin. If you’re not a little old, a little undersized, made to order with a one-dimensional style, or all of the above, sorry, but you’re probably not a fit for what Canelo wants to do from here on out. He is willing to forego maximum reward, as long as he still gets a high reward at minimum risk.
He has made it abundantly clear that David Benavidez — the sort of challenge he would likely have leapt at in his 20s — is wasting his time calling him out. And while Alalshikh may wave enough money at him to change his mind about Crawford, so far Alvarez has expressed that he feels taking on someone Crawford’s size is a reputational no-win. (Never mind that it didn’t stop Canelo from giving junior middleweight champ Charlo a shot last year.)
PPV.com’s Jim Lampley summed it up perfectly when speaking to BoxingScene’s Lance Pugmire this week: “At the end of the day, it’s up to Canelo. To me, Terence Crawford is the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. But Canelo is the No. 1 dollar-for-dollar fighter. Which is most important?”
You have arguably the best performer in the sport, arguably the biggest attraction in the sport, and inarguably the most well-funded promoter in the sport, three utterly dominant forces in their own respective ways, their fates pulling them toward this fascinating juxtaposition. It’s happening as Crawford prepares to enter the ring this weekend, as Alalshikh is promoting his first card in America, and as Alvarez is in training for a fight that Alalshikh aims to devour in some figurative sense.
Alvarez’s attitude toward fighting Crawford is nothing new in boxing. Everyone always has someone who makes perfect career-development and risk-reward sense for them, and someone who doesn’t.
While Crawford is trying to talk Canelo into fighting him, he’s decidedly uninterested in fighting Jaron “Boots” Ennis, the younger boxer who needs a crack at Crawford to attempt to take his career to the next level.
While Benavidez hungers for a shot at Alvarez, he never seems to mention the name of David Morrell — who is also in action on the PPV card in Los Angeles this Saturday.
Everyone is at a certain rung on the ladder, not wanting to risk their spot. Everyone is ducking someone, basically. Not because they fear that opponent, necessarily. Not because they don’t believe they can win. Just because it doesn’t align with their personal strategies and ambitions.
But Alalshikh has introduced a new element into boxing, something to shake up the age-old tradition of the fights fans desire not happening because the money required doesn’t exist. Canelo can demand $200 million to fight Crawford. And if he’s bluffing, Alalshikh, armed with endless supplies of cash to deploy with a mission of convincing the world to think happy thoughts about Saudi Arabia, may actually be able to call that bluff.
But you’d think Alalshikh wouldn’t want to risk burning, in a cinnamon-colored flame, that bridge along the way.
Then again, maybe antagonism is the answer. Alalshikh blowing his stack over Canelo having the audacity to fight on pay-per-view in Las Vegas on the same weekend he always fights on pay-per-view in Las Vegas seems immature and unwise, but it could prove effective.
Remember, Alvarez seems not to be motivated anymore by striving for greatness, and he seems not to be motivated anymore by pursuit of the highest possible paycheck.
Maybe what it will take to motivate him is hatred, spite, a desire to stick it to the promoter who wants to “eat him” and the relatively undersized boxer people are starting to accuse him of ducking.
Money is power. And ego is what makes the rich and powerful vulnerable.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].
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