Comments Thread For: The one that got away for Roy Jones Jnr wouldn?t have done so today

[Coverdale]

Roy is implying Dariusz was the only problem here when they both were. The closest it came was when HBO agreed to put up the money for a two-fight deal which brought Dariusz to the US for a showcase followed by a Roy fight. I gather the lack of a contractual guarantee of a Roy fight (it was simply implied) caused team DM to baulk.

That's when HBO began pushing for Jones - Ruiz because they were fed up of his gimme mandatory defences against the likes of Glen Kelly.

[BoxerWriter]

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“setting aside any misgivings about where the money was coming from to make it all happen and why it was being spent etc”.
What the hell are you talking about? Boxers are being pays money that they should have been paid by Western Promoters.
Soccer players and golfers are flocking to Saudi and are getting paid.

That’s money that’s coming from Oil revenue. It’s not stolen nor is it it controlled by corrupt corporations like it is in the US and UK. So your “misgivings” stems from prejudice or jealousy.

I think it's pretty obvious what I'm talking about. No one's arguing about the benefits the Saudi money has brought to boxing - the right fights being made and boxers being better paid etc (with less being stolen from them by corrupt middlemen and institutions etc) and no one is saying that the rest of the sport (both now and in years past) wasn't rife with corruption) - all I was saying is that as fans and human beings, you also have to separate the sports-washing agenda from your love and enjoyment of the sport. I was simply acknowledging that debate - not expressing any personal views - before moving onto my main point. Maybe it doesn't bother you and that's fine. Each to their own. I've chosen not to really dwell on it because of how much I love boxing (and I'm the first to admit how better things have been since they got involved in the sport) but I haven't completely erased the knowledge from my mind. I totally get that the money that has gone into the sport in decades past was almost definitely morally compromised too - we've all heard the stories of the mob running Vegas etc and every event Don King ever put on was probably funded in the most dubious ways possible - so yeah, it's nothing new. It's definitely not prejudice or jealously. Like I said, I was just acknowledging the debate. I have comparable misgivings about the corrupt corporations in the US and UK that you mention as well as the sanctioning bodies, promoters etc. I was simply saying that regardless of the concerns some people have, the Saudi revolution was just that - a revolution and a positive one - at least for the first 12-18 months, but this year seems to have fallen flat all of a sudden and it's having a ripple effect on promoters worldwide. I'm hoping it's just a temporary lull. Certainly the November 22 card is promising, but I'm surprised we still haven't had an undercard announcement for Canelo-Crawford as one example. I know that fight sells itself, but if had happened in the first wave of the Saudi revolution, we would have had a stacked undercard of 50-50 fights before the main event. On a similar note, the undercard for Usyk-Dubois 2 (which was a Queensberry promotion rather than Riyadh or Sela was atrocious too). I'm probably more concerned about the ripple effect elsewhere (as evidenced by the Usyk-Dubois 2 card and others) because if the promoters at home start hit hard times and the TV networks who have backed boxing for years turn their backs, we could enter a bit of a wilderness with only a few big marquee events throughout the year to look forward to. I hope that's not the case and we get back to the quality and quantity we had last year (and leading up to that). As I said in my previous message, the amazing run boxing has had - almost entirely due to the Saudi influx - has probably spoiled us as fans. Maybe I'm just being greedy!

[Oregonian]

I think it's pretty obvious what I'm talking about. No one's arguing about the benefits the Saudi money has brought to boxing - the right fights being made and boxers being better paid etc (with less being stolen from them by corrupt middlemen and institutions etc) and no one is saying that the rest of the sport (both now and in years past) wasn't rife with corruption) - all I was saying is that as fans and human beings, you also have to separate the sports-washing agenda from your love and enjoyment of the sport. I was simply acknowledging that debate - not expressing any personal views - before moving onto my main point. Maybe it doesn't bother you and that's fine. Each to their own. I've chosen not to really dwell on it because of how much I love boxing (and I'm the first to admit how better things have been since they got involved in the sport) but I haven't completely erased the knowledge from my mind. I totally get that the money that has gone into the sport in decades past was almost definitely morally compromised too - we've all heard the stories of the mob running Vegas etc and every event Don King ever put on was probably funded in the most dubious ways possible - so yeah, it's nothing new. It's definitely not prejudice or jealously. Like I said, I was just acknowledging the debate. I have comparable misgivings about the corrupt corporations in the US and UK that you mention as well as the sanctioning bodies, promoters etc. I was simply saying that regardless of the concerns some people have, the Saudi revolution was just that - a revolution and a positive one - at least for the first 12-18 months, but this year seems to have fallen flat all of a sudden and it's having a ripple effect on promoters worldwide. I'm hoping it's just a temporary lull. Certainly the November 22 card is promising, but I'm surprised we still haven't had an undercard announcement for Canelo-Crawford as one example. I know that fight sells itself, but if had happened in the first wave of the Saudi revolution, we would have had a stacked undercard of 50-50 fights before the main event. On a similar note, the undercard for Usyk-Dubois 2 (which was a Queensberry promotion rather than Riyadh or Sela was atrocious too). I'm probably more concerned about the ripple effect elsewhere (as evidenced by the Usyk-Dubois 2 card and others) because if the promoters at home start hit hard times and the TV networks who have backed boxing for years turn their backs, we could enter a bit of a wilderness with only a few big marquee events throughout the year to look forward to. I hope that's not the case and we get back to the quality and quantity we had last year (and leading up to that). As I said in my previous message, the amazing run boxing has had - almost entirely due to the Saudi influx - has probably spoiled us as fans. Maybe I'm just being greedy!

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I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you for the detailed response.
My take is very simple, any country that commits any kind of atrocities or sponsors global violence gets sanctioned by the US and UK. Meanwhile, those two countries with their history (past and present) have never been sanctioned by anyone so whenever I hear Westerners speak of Saudi or Russia in those terms, I just remind them to look in the mirror. We’ve done worse.