IT IS just after 08:30 on a Monday morning in California and Amer Adballah has broken away from a family reunion vacation in order to speak to Boxing News about life as perhaps boxing’s most important figure.
It is now just over six months since the former world champion kickboxer assumed his role as Head of Boxing for Skill Challenge Entertainment, the promotional company behind the emergence of Saudi Arabia as the most lucrative destination in the sport.
“I’ll be honest with you here,” he says. “I still pinch myself every day that I’ve got this opportunity and the blessing that has been bestowed upon me.
“It’s amazing, it’s a massive position and a massive responsibility. To me it’s everything I dreamed of doing; being a part of one of the biggest movements in boxing.
“I’ll never take it for granted. I know how big this is and I have full intention to take this all the way to the top and to do things that are unparalleled in this sport.”
Boxing is no stranger to those who deal in hyperbole but Abdallah is in the rare position where he can do exactly as he says. The staggering idea of Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder all fighting on the same card, for instance, is discussed with a similar certainty to that of Eddie Hearn looking ahead to a half-decent show at the o2 Arena.
Well spoken and charming, Abdallah seems like a man perfectly positioned between the members of the Saudi Arabian royal family who quite literally hold the keys to the Kingdom and the members of the boxing world with whom he had already forged strong relationships during his previous years in the sport.
But the spectre of one of his key alliances from the past has began to loom over his new work and it does not seem to be going away. To his credit, Abdallah was happy to discuss the suggestions that Daniel Kinahan, who he has been pictured alongside multiple times in the past, is somehow involved in his current dealings.
“I’ll make it very easy for you to understand,” says Abdallah, who raised a wry smile on mention of the Irishman’s name.
“After everything came out and after those sanctions came out, everybody that I know disassociated themselves from him. That includes me. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and we wish everybody the best but there is absolutely no affiliation here.
“I haven’t even responded to anything, I see the Tweets, the texts and everything.”
The pair met in Dubai, where it is said Kinahan currently resides. Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that the man who emerged as the biggest power broker in the entire sport is now considered the world’s most wanted man due to allegations made against him in relation to the Kinahan cartel.
In April last year, his face, alongside that of his father Christy and brother Christopher Jr, were put on Wanted posters by the US authorities who also pledged a reward of up to $5m for ‘information leading to the financial disruption of the Kinahan criminal organisation’ or the arrest of any of those three men. It was a watershed moment for the sport, and particularly for those who had done business with him in the past.
“It’s fair to say that I know the guy,” Abdallah continues. “It’s fair to say I’ve met the guy because most of the boxing, in fact all of the boxing world has also. I don’t shy away from that.
“I’ve had candid conversations in the past asking if there is an affiliation with that and the answer is absolutely not. That’s why we were able to move forward.
“I had met with him earlier that year, when we came to Dubai and before everything came out. But once it came out, everybody went their own way. It’s not worth that kind of involvement.
“We wish everybody the best and I hope it all works out for everybody. The truth will always come out. But to insinuate anything here, that’s slanderous. To say he’s involved or a part of anything, that’s a big allegation and the answer is absolutely not.”
Instead, Abdallah answers to Prince Khalid bin Abdulaziz, the founder and chairman of Skill Challenge, who essentially controls the strings of the deepest purse in the sport. But for their Head of Boxing, finding the balance between what is deserved and what is disrespectful has been a key challenge.
“Here’s the thing,” he begins. “Really there’s an elephant in the room. Any time you come to the table where Saudi Arabia are interested in a fight, there is always a premium price that ends up being set.
“I’ve talked to most, if not all, of the top guys and any time there has been a fight involving them, the number is up there. It gets to a point where the number, respectfully to them, is ridiculous.
“But I’ve walked the fighter’s path – I’ve fought, I’ve managed, I’ve promoted, I’ve owned a gym, I’ve worked a corner, I’ve wrapped hands. I’ve touched a lot of parts of this game so I get it. Fighters have got to ask for the world, I don’t fault them for that but on the other side they can’t fault me for just walking away and not coming back to renegotiate.
“It’s almost disrespectful to come back with those kinds of numbers. It doesn’t mean the kingdom can’t bear those numbers, you just have to put a value to the actual worth to a fight itself, or a fighter.”
It has also been suggested that, while the eye-watering numbers on offer in the Kingdom may well pave the way for the biggest fights to take place, they have also skewed the market in such a way that the elite fighters are no longer happy to fight for anything other than Saudi Money.
Take, for example, Usyk. The Ukrainian, who is now signed with SCEE, walked away from negotiations regarding a fight with Fury at Wembley Stadium because it was simply nowhere near as lucrative as facing him – or probably any other heavyweight – in Saudi.
Abdallah, for once, begins to raise his voice at the notion that this might be damaging to the sport. It’s an ‘insulting’ suggestion, he insists.
“Look, I’m not ignorant to that and that’s a fair question but listen, that’s the sport,” he counters. “Mayweather-Pacquiao didn’t get made for seven years because of all the politics. It literally took us two weeks to make the biggest fights happen. Money does flex, money does matter in this sport because money and timing is everything.
“If you have the right funds and the right timing then any fight can be made. I don’t think it’s fair to describe us as being disruptive in the sport, if anything it unifies the sport and gives the fighters what they want, when they want it and it gives the fans what they want too.
“We’re willing to take that risk so it’s almost insulting to say we are coming in and disrupting the sport – the sport is already disrupted. You already have the top guys that can’t make a fight. You already have fights that can’t be made because of all these disruptions. We come in and say we will pay the fighters X amount, we will do a full buy-out and put on the fight. It’s insulting to even visit the notion that it’s ruining everything.
“We are not going to make every fight, other fights will happen, but we will pick and choose who we want to work with, when we want to work with them. That’s the nature of any business: being in the right place at the right time and having the right product. This is where we’re at.”
So what of that heavyweight double-header? Was that anymore than bluster from a man trying to make a splash in a crowded market. It seems the answer is yes, much more.
“Firstly we should point out that all four guys are likely fighting in August or September,” Abdallah says.
“But if, in the best case scenario, all of them win those fights and come out unscathed then I think we are going to have an event in December that will absolutely blow the socks off the boxing world. It will be something that we absolutely have interest in but nothing is official yet.
“There haven’t been any offers made, any financial numbers discussed, because we are not in that position yet. It’s not to say we don’t have the funds, it’s just that we aren’t in the position to make the fight happen because these guys all have other obligations before then.
“But by the end of the summer-early fall, we will be able to have a better picture of where these guys stand and get official offers out to them. I don’t think the negotiations will be difficult and I don’t think there will be any hurdles. I don’t see any roadblocks in the way for this.”
The biggest one, it would seem, are the egos in play. From a traditional boxing standpoint it is almost impossible to see all four men – with all the baggage they will bring – agreeing to a fight on the same night. But this is no longer a traditional boxing marketplace.
“Prince Khalid is really the one who came up with this idea,” Abdallah adds. “He asked me what I thought and I said ‘Your Highness, this is absolutely absurd’. It would be the biggest spectacle in the history of boxing – and that is why he wants to do it. He has the backing of the Ministry and tons of support from across the region so I think the event itself is going to be massive.
“How can we make sure everyone is satisfied? Well, we are going to respect everybody’s value and everybody’s position and I would like to think, in turn, we will be respected as well.
“We are not going to put an offer out there that will be 1) insulting to anybody or 2) anything below a premium price. It will probably be higher than any of them will have been paid before.
“And 3) there will not be a negotiation. It will be ‘here’s a great number, we’d love to make this work’. It will be a take-it-or-leave-it deal. It would be insulting if anybody came back and said ‘I want more’.”
It is clear that these are unparalleled times for the sport and such a night would be in keeping with that. For Abdallah, it seems like another day in the office. But when your decisions can have a profound effect on the entire future of the sport, the work never stops.
Not even for a family reunion.
