Riyadh Season’s Turki Alalshikh has seemingly ruled out working with Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez after claiming the Mexican only likes ‘easy fights’.
Alalshikh made no secret of his desire to make the huge match-up between two time undisputed champion Terence Crawford and current super-middleweight unified champion Canelo, even announcing during the Crawford-Madrimov card that an offer had been sent to Canelo’s team.
However, just 48 hours later that offer had been rescinded and the man behind big time boxing in Saudi Arabia said he had now ‘disregarded’ the clash.
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“Just wrapped up an important meeting now with my team, planning for the upcoming fights that we will make for 2024-2025. I decided to disregard the Canelo fight, as I don’t want it anymore. Instead, I will be focusing for the US market with bigger fights, especially for the legend Crawford.”
In response, Canelo said he ‘doesn’t really care’ and that the fight could only happen on his terms.
“I don’t really care about it. Look, I’m focused 100% on my fight and I don’t really care about it. They text me yesterday, is it possible to talk about that Crawford fight for February or meet yesterday here in Los Angeles with him. And I said look, I’m 100% focused on this fight and I can’t talk about other fights.
Maybe that’s why he thought about that today, because I say I’m not ready to talk about other fights. And I don’t really ask him for anything. I’m good … I’m good with what I’m doing. I don’t need that kind of thing. I’m not looking for that kind of fight. If they want the fight, okay, it’s my way not their way.”
The man behind Riyadh Season has now taken to social media to claim the four-weight world champion was wasting his time and is ‘afraid’ to fight the best ever since his loss to Dmitry Bivol.
“I heard what Canelo said that he respects me but doesn’t like the way we do business. As for him respecting me, it doesn’t matter to me if he does or not. As for the way I do business, I know why he doesn’t like it, because I only target big fights at fair prices, so of course anyone who likes easy fights won’t like that.
And I know how he feels after losing to Bivol, so he’s been looking for easier fights ever since. Also, I’m not the one who’s afraid of fighting Benavidez or Crawford.
Therefore, I knew he was wasting our time and making excuses with big amounts of money that can’t be paid. So I’m continuing my way to make big fights that serve the boxing world, and he’s on his way to making easy show-only fights.”
Alalshikh is now focusing on other big fights for Crawford with Vergil Ortiz and Jaron ‘Boot’s Ennis both at the top of the list.
