{"id":682609,"date":"2026-07-09T16:27:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682609\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:27:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:27:22","slug":"simon-jordan-predicts-saudi-boxing-spending-will-slow-after-major-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682609\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Jordan Predicts Saudi Boxing Spending Will Slow After Major Investment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI think the Saudis and I think the Middle Eastern money is beginning to slow down because I think that the level of investment is now being made,\u201d Jordan said to talkSport Boxing. \u201cI don\u2019t think they want to spend enormous amounts of money going forward. I think they want it stand on its own feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurki might then step out. I don\u2019t know how much of a brief he\u2019s going to get from MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, going forward to keep on this agenda because it helps him with the young generation in his part of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, led by Turki Alalshikh, has transformed boxing over the past three years by financing many of the sport\u2019s biggest fights and bringing together rival promoters that had struggled to work with one another. The investment has also helped launch Dana White\u2019s new boxing venture, which aims to simplify the sport with a single championship belt in each weight class.<\/p>\n

Jordan, however, believes Alalshikh\u2019s role in boxing is more complicated than simply bringing the sport together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony of needing peace talks is he creates the war and then becomes the negotiator of the peace,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to the influence Alalshikh now holds over the sport, recalling that he once warned Eddie Hearn the Saudi chairman could eventually diminish the role of traditional promoters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him three years ago, he can do what you do\u2026 one day along the line you\u2019re going to be redundant in that perspective,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cHe\u2019s got the money to be able to do it and now he\u2019s proven the case. Everyone defers to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite questioning the long-term sustainability of Saudi spending, Jordan acknowledged that boxing has grown under Alalshikh\u2019s leadership. He said Turki remains convinced the sport\u2019s commercial ceiling is much higher than its current level, although Jordan questioned whether boxing can ever compete with global giants such as football or cricket.<\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s prediction will likely be tested over the coming years. If Saudi Arabia scales back its financial backing after establishing boxing\u2019s new structure, promoters and broadcasters may once again shoulder a greater share of the burden for making major fights. If investment continues at its current pace, however, Alalshikh\u2019s influence over the sport is only likely to grow.<\/p>\n

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Tom Galm is a boxing journalist who has covered the global fight landscape since 2014, specializing in heavyweight analysis, industry trends, and fighter psychology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think the Saudis and I think the Middle Eastern money is beginning to slow down because I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-682609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}