Ring Magazine sold to Turki Alalshikh

[Mark TKO]

Just seen this. A long time since I bought a hard copy but still refer to their ratings for definitive view. Not sure how I feel about it being on Turks hands now....

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianma...rki-alalshikh/

[Master]

Tic raised this in one of his posts.

I thought it was good that it was away from Oscar and that if I was a billionaire fan like Turki then I would do the same as it is the bible of boxing. I was looking for a hard copy at WH Smith but could not find one.

The posters were what I bought the magazine but that was a long time ago.

[Spicoli]

Not big on this. Took a very long time to be invested and hold the Ring to a standard after Oscar and promotion became direct part of it. And never fully got to that point but always found the rankings fairly thought out as multiple independent voices have input and vote. I simply cannot imagine a man who goes by "His Excellency" and wants to confine future Riyadh cards to only Saudi Arabia soil would be an improvement at all. In the background I wonder if he's leaning into controlling rankings as it goes and it feels like a rich kid on a trophy hunt for his hobby collection. If the intent is to make the Ring belt center focus and shut out the other sanctioning bodies over time well, you're also trying to streamline and limit lesser-known fighters who actually get a crack at notoriety and exposure. Also think of his prior talk about making a league and such. Early though so it'll play out. For right now I'll stick to the 4 file boxes of past issues in the den

[TIC]

bringing back physical editions & digitizing the whole catalog sounds great. talk of continued independent ratings panel & coverage also sounds good but we'll have to wait & see. for some reason i see a two sanctioning bodies future, possibly under the same umbrella that lead to an undisputed champion