“Together, we are developing the next generation of talent and delivering world-class events at a time when the sport is primed for further disruption.” The Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, Turki Alalshikh, promised a wave of excitement as he shook hands with Dana White, with the plans to land in the boxing realm. And that excitement will definitely boom up with the superfight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford in September. 

For the unversed, the inaugural boxing event will go down on 12 September 2025 at the Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas. The event will be promoted by our very own Dana White and the Advisor to the Saudi Arabian Royal Court. “We will deliver the fight of the century with Riyadh Season on Sept. 12 at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. The legend Canelo defends his Ring Magazine title vs. the great Terence Crawford. The TV platform will be announced soon with a big surprise. My brother Dana White will promote this first TKO boxing event with me. It will be something crazy.” Alalshikh wrote on his socials. 

And their aim will be to save boxing by introducing a unified championship model. But as we were about to get ready for the wave of excitement, the COO of TKO Holdings, Mark Shapiro, came forward with some major revelations. Let’s see what he had to say about this new venture. 

Well, for starters, the venture is not going to be named TKO Boxing. The COO said, “We’ll be unveiling our name for name for our business fairly soon here. But it will not be TKO Boxing.” Nevertheless, he claimed that the Saudis will take care of the funding, while the personnel at TKO Group will engage in global partnerships, ticketing, production, and promotion. Of course, it’ll all happen with the Saudis on board. And as far as the number of events is concerned, Shapiro revealed that there would be about 12 events in a year. On top of that, there’d be 1-4 superfights per year.

Shapiro quoted, “We’re expecting with the new boxing organization that we’re launching to put on an average of, call it 12 fights a year. 12 cards a year, for each of the next 5 years. We’re still putting that plan together and obviously working hand in hand with our friends from Saudi. Irrespective of those, we will hope to do anywhere from 1 to 4 sorts of super fights per year.

He added, “We’ll see how that plays out. But obviously, we would term the Canelo-Crawford September matchup as one of those. And then on that undercard, we would have a number of those undercard fights that would likely air on the television partner, the media partner we would have for our newly formed boxing organization.”

Needless to say, the TKO Group is yet to land a new deal for the media rights for the UFC as well as for the boxing venture. But after everything gets sorted out for good, how will the fights proceed, and who will become the champion? Let’s take a look at the model. 

What will be the format of Dana White and Co.’s boxing venture? 

In an interview with Turki Alalshikh’s Ring magazine, the UFC CEO confirmed that the boxing venture will be similar to the MMA promotion in terms of the format. He said, “Everybody knows the format — the best fight the best. You work your way up the rankings, and once somebody breaks into the top five [and] there is no question [about] who the best five guys are in each weight class, they fight it out. And once somebody holds that belt, you don’t need three letters in front of the belt. Whoever has that belt is the best in the world in that weight class. It’s a very simple model.”

Before White revealed his plans, all the boxing world knew about championship positions was the four-belt system, and that too in 17 different weight classes. Here, four different fighters had a legitimate claim on the title of the best boxer in their divisions. But with the highly structured system that White and Turki Alalshikh are planning to bring in, we can expect things to get even more exciting for the boxing fans. 

And for now, we need to get ready to watch Alvarez defend his Ring Magazine belt title against Crawford. And the emotions are running wild in the fanbase. After all, Shapiro had already claimed back in 2016 that the feature profile of the company was to move people. No doubt, they were in the emotion transportation business.  

Are you excited for the debut of TKO Holdings in the realm of squared rings? Do you think it’ll have the potential to surpass WBA and other well-established boxing promotions? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.