His Excellency Turki Alalshikh is currently the most respected matchmaker in professional boxing. He wants to give the fans exactly what they want — elite boxers competing against each other and not holding on to their belts. The chief architect of events such as the “Day of Reckoning”, “Ring of Fire” and “Queensberry vs. Matchroom – 5 vs 5”, is solving all the logistical and financial issues that otherwise would have stopped highly anticipated matchups from happening. This year, the Riyadh Season will bring you another undisputed title clash between Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev on October 12.

However, there is still one thing HE still has to work towards — lowering the PPV prices. The Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk pay-per-view cost around $69.99 (£53.28) on DAZN, which was quite steep. Furthermore, the recently concluded Crawford-Madrimov PPV was priced at a whopping $79.99 for new DAZN subscribers. On that note, one fan wrote on X, “The crawford card was mass-pirated because the price was outrageous.” HE Turki Alalshikh took cognizance of the issue, and responded, “I agree”.

The Saudi Arabian Royal, thus, revealed his target for the upcoming Riyadh season fight card — “Riyadh  season  card  ppv Will be with good price for the fans.” One user shared his plight — “In the U.K would like to see the prices for the PPV’s be £19.99 and no more, putting it up puts some people off because a lot are struggling as it is and would be nice if they could enjoy the excellent events.” Taking a note of the user’s grouse over steep PPV prices for boxing events, HE Turki Alalshikh responded, “This is our target and this is our plan.”

Another boxing fan’s wish to see boxing events at a “reasonable price” prompted HE Turki Alalshikh to respond with, “This is what we want We only care about the fence (fans).” Although the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia is willing to offer fans exciting and competitive boxing fights at a reasonable price, he is in no mood to work with fighters who overcharge or overestimate their worth.

The ultimate snub to ‘The Face of Boxing’

Recently, HE approached Canelo Alvarez with a fight offer to have a showdown with one of the pound-for-pound greats in boxing, Terence Crawford. But, Alvarez turned it down, setting a price of $150 million to face the two-time undisputed champion in the ring. But, HE Turki Alalshikh won’t be caving in to Canelo’s demands.

“I decided to discard the Canelo fight, as I don’t want it anymore,” HE wrote on social media. Further taking a dig at Canelo, he stated that Alvarez, at the stage of his career, wants to make only “easy show-only fights” which does not align with his vision of “making big fights at fair prices.” Clearly, the Chairman will not entertain Canelo Alvarez calling the shots in the fight business.

Nevertheless, do you think HE Turki Alalshikh did the right thing by moving away from the Mexican icon who is demanding astronomical prices for a showdown with elite contenders like David Benavidez and Terence Crawford? And what about his plans to make PPV prices reasonable for the Bivol-Beterbiev clash? Will it work? Let us know in the comment section below.