Something diabolical has been happening on boxing social media for a while now, and the interesting part is that it has fooled many people. So, Elie Seckbach from ES News has taken it upon himself to make people aware of the situation and prevent fans from getting fooled. What exactly happened? And what does Michael Benson have to do with all this? 

You see, earlier this year His Excellency Turki Alalshikh acquired Ring Magazine from Golden Boy honcho Oscar De La Hoya for $10 million. This came amid Alalshikh’s ongoing efforts to restore the publication to its former glory. Regardless, soon after this hefty purchase, the Saudi Royal pulled out his purse again to buy an X account. Updates revealed that Saudi Arabia’s Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority had purchased talkSport editor Michael Benson’s X account as well, rebranding it as the official X handle for Ring Magazine.

And here’s where things got interesting! Soon after Benson’s name was swapped for Ring Magazine, a new X account came to life with Benson’s name. Unlike the original Benson account, it was named ‘MichaelBensonn’—vague enough to confuse many in the boxing world. Benson’s new account kept pumping out fake news on the platform, with many believing it while others spread the fake news further. Seckbach, who has worked as a journalist for years, wasn’t fooled though.

The journalist decided to cover the news with a video on Instagram. “There’s a lot of people capping in boxing, but there’s only one pound-for-pound king of cap,” he said in the video. “And this is this page right here, Michael Benson with two N’s on Twitter. He puts out so much made-up news. He’s just trolling.”

“Just this week I saw about 15 legitimate main people in boxing run with his fake news as if it was legit,” Seckbach added. The reports highlighted several tweets from the fake Benson account, systematically debunking them and exposing the account as fraudulent. Meanwhile, the fake Benson account also seems to have reported about a development involving Seckbach.

‘Fake’ Michael Benson claims Seckbach had his press accreditation rejected

Around the same time, Seckbach released his video, the fake Benson account claimed that Seckbach had his press accreditation rejected by the Riyadh season because of unprofessional media coverage. “Elie Seckbach has had his press accreditation rejected by Riyadh Season due to unprofessional media coverage,” the account wrote. 

“Seckbach attempted to cover Shakur’s next fight, but now won’t be allowed into KSA by His Excellency,” the account added crediting ‘@LeeNoSmoke’ as the source for the update. It’s unclear whether this is true, but ‘@LeeNoSmoke’ responded to the post on X suggesting it might be. “I was told by Ben Shalom tbf,” they responded. 

That said, his Excellency Turki Alalshikh’s acquisition of Michael Benson’s official X account appears to have sparked a whirlwind of fake news within the boxing community. It would be wise to take news from the X account as a parody, which it seems to be. What do you think about the situation?