RECENTLY Turki Alalshikh confirmed he had bought the second longest running boxing magazine in the world and resurrected its print version after a two-year hiatus. For the traditionalists among us, it’s great to see another boxing magazine returning to the newsstands.
Nothing beats having a physical, paper magazine in your hands, its great coffee table reading and can also be rolled up to stun approaching wasps, so the return of The Ring should overall be regarded as a good thing for boxing and a stark warning to aggressive insects.
Back in the 1990s, fight lovers were spoiled for choice with a whole host of boxing magazines to choose from, before we consumed our content via the internet and social media channels. As a teenager, I read every magazine cover to cover with half a shelf of magazines lurking in major newsagents – Boxing News, Boxing Monthly, Boxing Outlook, Boxing Weekly, Boxing Illustrated, KO, World Boxing, Boxing ’91 and The Ring were all widely available.
In my younger years, I particularly liked KO with its monthly pull-out colour poster of a reigning world champion though my girlfriend of the time did query why the walls of my room was filled with pictures of half-naked Filipino and Mexican men.
In the national newspapers in those days, major boxing was often front and back page news but print coverage has dwindled in recent times as the digital era took hold and the sporting eye was diverted elsewhere. Boxing News has been the last of the old school to remain in print but will now be rejoined by our younger American brother after his two-year breather. Reportedly, The Ring has been sold from one promoter, Golden Boy, to another, for a purported $10 million.
Mr Alalshikh, aka His Excellency, aka the new owner, announced on November 11 that: “The [Ring] magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will restore the legacy of The Ring Rankings to its old mechanism with a fully independent panel that lives up to the Ring Magazine’s golden era. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles …..The Ring Magazine will be a fully independent company without any involvement from Riyadh Season….”
Independent was mentioned three times in the full statement and time will tell how neutral the revamped Ring will be. Journalism cannot breathe when burdened by undue influence (I know this from past experience). Editorial policy and ratings will be under close scrutiny with the new regime and will need to be pristine.
If a Riyadh Season card disappoints or falls short like the Terence Crawford vs Israil Madrimov misfire in Los Angeles, how will that be reported? A boxing writer, with mouths to feed, might think twice about their words rather than upsetting the man/government writing the cheques.
The Ring ratings raised eyebrows last month on the DAZN broadcast of Jack Catterall vs Regis Prograis when a graphic showed Golden Boy fighter Jose Ramirez as the No.2 140lbs contender on the planet. For a moment, I wondered if a time machine had been invented and we’d travelled back three and a half years to Jose’s championship reign, but a quick Google search showed this nose-bleed high ranking was very real.
Ramirez’s lofty position made little sense given that Catterall had already beaten former undisputed champ Josh Taylor and Liam Paro had upset the heavy-handed Subriel Matias in Puerto Rico. A lacklustre Ramirez, promoted by then-owners Golden Boy if you missed it in the earlier paragraph, had one win in 17 months defeating Rances Barthelemy in April 2024 (before his points loss to Arnold Barboza this weekend).
It may have been an oversight, perhaps a spreadsheet wasn’t updated, but it wasn’t a good look that an independent panel had all been so enamoured by Ramirez that they had placed him over two Matchroom fighters who had demonstrably achieved more to anyone with eyes and that touchpaper word ‘independence’. Often, there is nothing untoward involved whatsoever but how a rating ‘looks’ is crucially import, too. Balance and neutrality are paramount, always.
The Ring title has been increasingly pushed on us in recent times but I’ve never bought into the cult of that belt – it seemed to gain greater prominence in the Oscar De La Hoya ownership era that began in 2007 when the Golden Boy himself was still an active fighter. The Ring belt was dormant when I started working in boxing in 1990s. You might see Pernell Whitaker posing in it for ceremonial purposes, but that silky belt seemed a gaudy marketing tool. No one talked about it seriously in boxing circles.
At Boxing News our rankings are truly independent – with the ratings panel allegedly locked in a darkened room, reviewing hours of fight footage, and only allowed out for one hour of sunlight a day. Disappoint one Boxing News reader and the panel spend a day in the ‘Stocks’ in front of a jeering mob. We take these matters seriously.
In reality, the No.1’s in most divisions pick themselves with no belt necessary: Oleksandr Usyk, Jai Opetaia, Artur Beterbiev, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Jaron Ennis, Naoya Inoue, Junto Nakatani, Bam Rodriguez, Oscar Collazo lead the way. I wouldn’t be dishing out a gaudy BN branded belt to any of them (though orange would be my choice of belt colour). Make the fights that matter, not more belts that don’t. We certainly don’t need five world championship belts knocking about.
Time will tell how this plays out, but the Ring belts offer the groundbreaking Alalshikh an immediate opportunity to fulfil his optimistic vision of one champion in every division. But the ideal of a sole champion, per weight class, only works if the sanctioning bodies take a back seat or fall away. That’s highly unlikely. There will always be fighters who crave belts and pay hefty sanctioning fees to obtain them.
At Boxing News, we have no vested interest, other than seeing evenly-matched fighters compete in a safe and clean sport, and the best fighting the best rather than swerving them. Like it should be.
[Start of article very slightly edited for time changes since publication – Ed]
