Don’t expect Dana White to act all that surprised that Turki Alalshikh struck a deal to sign Canelo Alvarez to a multi-fight deal that ultimately stole him away from a potential showdown against Jake Paul.
It was a rollercoaster ride on Friday when it appeared Canelo was just moments away from inking a contract to face Paul in a boxing match that would have aired on Netflix in May. Paul fought Mike Tyson in a similar event this past November with more than 100 million viewers tuning into watch the show.
Paul obviously hoped he could duplicate or even surpass those numbers, but Canelo ultimately ended up signing a four-fight deal with Riyadh Season instead, which is run by Alalshikh as the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia.
“Listen, they control the sport of boxing right now,” White said about the team running the show in Saudi Arabia. “I don’t think it’s hard for them to steal anybody from anybody.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of that deal but I’m sure it’s not too hard to steal somebody away from [Jake Paul and Most Valuable Promotions] to Saudi. Totally different levels. Not even the same universe of levels.”
Of course, White does business with Alalshikh as part of an overall deal between the UFC and Saudi Arabia with the latest event just taking place in early February when Israel Adesanya headlined a card against Nassourdine Imavov while also bringing Power Slap to the Middle East as well.
White has praised Alalshikh as a tremendous business partner but also gave him credit for revitalizing the sport of boxing because he’s almost single handedly been able to make some of the biggest matchups possible while cutting through red tape between various promoters in the sport.
Of course, Paul went nuclear when his deal with Canelo fell through after he’s repeatedly called for a fight against the multi-time champion, who later scoffed at suggestion that he was seriously considering the matchup and saying that no one should pay attention to a “f*cking YouTuber” while adding that he only faces “real fighters.”
In response, Paul ripped Canelo for dealing with Alalshikh and signing a four-fight deal that effectively kills any chance that they would ever face each other — at least any time soon.
“Oh, Canelo, you puta. Time to expose him,” Paul said. “So, we had a signed contract to fight. Here, you can see Canelo’s signature and my signature to the right. Claiming he’s not fighting Youtubers? Bullsh*t. Look at the poster. We were announcing Tuesday, Feb. 11. Claiming he fights real fighters, but he fighting Crawford, a 135-pound fighter, and running from a real fighter like David Benavidez, you b*tch.
“The truth is, you can be bought. You’re a money-hungry squirrel chasing your next nut. The truth is, the sportswashing shady characters are paying you hundreds of millions of dollars to stop our fight from happening because they couldn’t fathom the fact that they can’t create a bigger fight than me and you. Al Haymon has made you hundreds of millions of dollars, and you turned your back on him for this check. Disloyal. And you were begging to do this fight on pay-per-view, but I have loyalty. Loyalty to Netflix, doing the biggest numbers. You call me a Youtuber, but you’ve never had a boxing match as big as mine.”
For his part, Canelo has already moved on with a matchup booked against William Scull in May with a potential megafight looming against Terrance Crawford later this year. As for Paul, he’s still stewing over the loss of the Canelo fight but obviously he won’t get much sympathy from the UFC CEO and president.
