Opinion: Why Turki Alalshikh’s ‘landmark venue’ boxing grand plan is proving a failure

Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh staged Ring Magazine's first boxing bill in New York City's iconic Times Square recently but Mark Mothershaw feels fight fans saw enough to suggest that plans for London, Paris and Alcatraz takeovers should be scrapped.

Credit where credit is due, 'His Excellency' has certainly put his money where his mouth is since his integration into the boxing world.

Over the past couple of years, the Chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority has significantly transformed the landscape of the sport, helping unite boxing’s biggest promoters, the vast majority of whom seemingly had little appetite to work together and stage the fights that fans had long been clamouring for.

There’s little doubt that bouts of the magnitude of Oleksandr Usyk v Tyson Fury, Dmitry Bivol v Artur Beterbiev and the forthcoming Canelo Alvarez v Terence Crawford showdown would have taken place without Alalshikh's pull and, of course, purse strings.

He's a true boxing pugilist and has absolutely made a significantly positive impression thus far.

But, I have to say his outlandish plans for boxing events to be staged adjacent to some of planet earth's most recognisable landmarks - including London Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and Alcatraz Prison - has left a lot to be desired, even if I do understand the method to his thinking.

The Times Square stage certainly drew attention and probably caught the imagination of a fair share of people who who likely had little to no interest in boxing beforehand. As a spectacle, it was impressive, there's no doubt about that.

The logistics of staging that event in one of the busiest cross junctions on earth will have been colossal, and as Matchroom's Eddie Hearn - who was tasked with overseeing the plans - has already attested to, it was a challenge that caused him endless sleepless nights.

But beyond the initial excitement following the announcement, and the impressive nature of Alalshikh being able to literally take control of the busiest area of the Big Apple, the event itself was underwhelming.

For me, and many others, the venue and setting had everything to do with it.

Look, we have all become accustomed to the lack of atmosphere at fights staged in Saudi Arabia, and, truth be told, we are more than happy to accept it, because we are baring witness to occasions that many have waited years, if not decades, for.

Those first few events in the Middle East were undoubtedly tough watches for the boxing folk who are accustomed to the more wild and lairy fight nights in Las Vegas, New York and London.

The sight of sheikhs wandering around with cups of coffee and phones in their hands probably wasn't what we had expected to see as Saudi Arabia announced itself as the new home of world boxing.

Atmospheres over there have improved over time; even if they do still appear eerily quiet when watching the action unfold from behind a television screen, several thousand miles away from the Middle Eastern desert.

But for all that I say about that, the fights are proving to continuously deliver the goods. Sadly however, the same simply cannot be said about what we witnessed at Times Square.

Ryan Garcia will have been searching for every excuse in the book after being stunned into submission by Rolly Romero, but his claims that the fight felt like a glorified sparring session are genuinely believable.

A handful of hand-picked spectators were ringside, the sounds of sirens and car horns continuously blasted in the background and fighters were shipped in via taxi, before being dropped off outside of a packed out Taco Bell to begin their ring walks.

All in all, it generated a truly bizarre feel to the card, so little wonder the three bill-topping bouts - each of which could have been a main event showdown in their own right - were so frustratingly flat.

I didn't actually realise quite how poor the fights were at the time - maybe I was still bamboozled by everything taking place in front of my somewhat bloodshot eyes in the small hours of that Saturday morning.

But the very fact that two of the three bouts (Ryan Garcia v Rolando Romero and Devin Haney v Jose Ramirez) now feature amongst the top six 12-round fights with the lowest punch outputs of all-time tells you everything you need to know.

Haney, one of the most supremely talented fighters of his generation and somebody lined-up to tackle Garcia next, spent more time trying to avoid punches than actually thinking of letting fly any of his own.

There was no urgency, there was no risk-for-reward, the whole shebang lacked fizz and excitement - even the esteemed US boxing commentator Jim Lampley himself acknowledged that fight-wise, the card was a disappointment.

Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya, who had three fighters on the bill, even lambasted proceedings the following morning - venting his frustrations at the way the fighters, somewhat negatively, set about their business.

I, and millions of others, can't argue with him, but I do wonder whether we'd have been having this same conversation had the event taken place inside the fabled boxing institution Madison Square Garden, just a few blocks away from where this lacklustre affair was playing out.

I'm all for change - I love the idea of the TKO Saudi Boxing League, for example - and I am certainly all for Alalshikh. As I say, the work he has carried out in just a couple of years eclipses that of his peers over the past decade or more.

But please leave these sort of fights to the more established venues. Big fights need big fight feels. They need fans, they need atmosphere, and to an even greater extent, for the fighters, they need normality.

The very thought of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua sat in a black cab en-route to a blockbuster bout on London Bridge and Teofimo Lopez going to war with Richardson Hitchins inside a derelict and eerie Alcatraz prison truly makes me shudder.

After enduring the snooze fest in New York, I'm just keeping everything crossed that we don't have to bare witness to it.

Mark Mothershaw

• Riyadh Season
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