Boxing

Turki Alalshikh Sets Record Straight On Dana White Promoting Canelo vs Crawford

Turki Alalshikh got honest about whether Dana White was still promoting the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford fight.
Grant Young|
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

When the Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford mega-fight was announced to be taking place on September 13, Riyadh Season's Turki Alalshikh made it clear that UFC CEO Dana White (who is a key part of the TKO Group, which recently signed a partnership deal with Alalshikh) would be promoting the event.

However, this sentiment seemed to change on May 18, when Alalshikh made an X post that wrote, "We have confirmed the promoter for Canelo v Crawford will be Sela for Riyadh Season. The broadcaster we have not decided yet but the date will be Saturday 13th September. More details soon …🥊🔥".

For context, Sela is is also a partner alongside TKO Group and Alalshikh for this new boxing promotion.

This X post cast a lot of doubt about whether White and TKO would still be promoting the event, especially because there was initially a UFC PPV card scheduled for that same day (the PPV has since been cancelled). And given the late change, some wondered whether this meant there was some bad blood brewing between White and Alalshikh, who are arguably the two most powerful men in all of combat sports.

But Turki set the record straight in this regard with an X post on June 8 that read, "My brother Dana will promote this fight. It is the fight of Riyadh Season, and we have a deal with TKO to promote it and it will the biggest fight in boxing, and tomorrow I think I will tell the details and the platform and the place for this fight, me and and Dana 👍".

Attached to this post was White's response to being asked about Turki not mentioning him in the aforementioned May 18 X post, where White said, "I'm gonna tell you something that's awesome, man. So, there's a lot of f***** up things about boxing. But they don't say s***. I mean, nobody talks. It's the most amazing thing.

"These guys don't talk. I'm promoting the fight," he added with a smile.

So, not only are White and Turki clearly still on good terms and White is still promoting the fight, but the boxing world can expect final details about this Canelo vs. Crawford bout in the coming days.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.