Barry McGuigan Predicts Dana White Will Use Ring Magazine Title

Barry McGuigan spoke to gambleonline.net about the following: Dana White, TKO, and Turki Alalshikh will have all four boxing organisations ‘concerned’. McGuigan questions if Turki prefers Dana White to Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren. Also predicts they will sign the best talent and use the Ring Magazine title for each division in the new breakaway league.

I = Interviewer
BG = Barry McGuigan

I: What’s your thoughts on Dana White and TKO entering boxing?

BG: Does that mean Turki Alalshikh gets on better with Dana White than he does with Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren? What does it mean and is it because Dana White has the support of Turki that he has got into boxing? I don’t know these answers but all I can do is guess. It almost seems like Dana went out there with the UFC and made it a big success and Turki has said ‘I can still work with Eddie and Frank but you’re the man’.

I: Dana White has mentioned one title in each division and building new talent and signing big names – what do you think to that, and them potentially staging Canelo vs Crawford?

BG: Turki Alalshikh bought Ring Magazine and Ring Magazine was there before the breaking up of all organisations. It was considered as the belt to have so it’s a clever move from Turki. But by agreeing to this union with Dana White, does it mean he now will start weaning off Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn? Does he seem to have struck up a good relationship with Dana White as opposed to Eddie and Frank? They don’t even have to touch British fighters. Most of the fighters are from North and Central America.

I: Dana White wants one champion in each division under the new partnership…

BG: It’ll be interesting to see how that dynamic works because one thing that boxing has always been against is unifications. Organisations are separate with the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO. We have Canelo Alvarez, Inoue and a few unified champions such as Terence Crawford when he was down at welterweight, but we have always had this inability to get the best to fight the best.

That was as many promoters being scared of the other promoters and paying more than they could to steal the talent. It will be interesting to see how this goes over the years, but it has to be a good thing for boxing. It’s like they are saying, with the greatest respect we don’t want to buy into the four organisations and try to appease them. We can take a guy who has already done it with the UFC, who has one champion in each weight division and start our Ring Magazine belt.

It’s interesting that they want to sign talent too and they’ll be able to with Turki’s money. For me it is interesting. Are they going to make Riyadh a hub where the best fights in the world take place in the future? They’re looking at Las Vegas and saying we’re going to be the Eastern Las Vegas where all the best fights happen with the best talent. They’ll bring them in and I imagine that’s what’s going to happen.

I’m sure Turki Alalshikh has looked around and spoken to the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF and have then gone to Dana White and, I’m only assuming this, that he has said ‘this is less complicated to do business with you’. I don’t want to point the finger at anybody, but he has helped the TV broadcasters, and he will want to have something back. He’s bought Ring Magazine so he has the belts, and the organisations must be pretty terrified about it.

Roberto Villa is the CEO, Founder, Executive Writer, Senior Editor of FightBook MMA. Has a passion for Combat Sports and also a podcast host for Sitting Ringside. He’s also a former MMA fighter and Kickboxer.