Oscar De La Hoya had owned the publication since 2017
17 years after purchasing The Ring, Oscar De La Hoya has seemingly sold “The Bible of Boxing” to Turki Alalshikh, confirming a September report from Julius Julianis.
This marks the Saudi royal’s second major grasp at control of boxing’s unofficial ranking systems, having previously partnered with Fight Fax and the WBA earlier this year in a move that got the sanctioning body booted from BoxRec. As Fight Fax currently has Marco Huck tied with Oleksandr Usyk for no. 1 at heavyweight, Sergey Kovalev no. 2 at cruiserweight, and Sergio Martinez no. 1 at middleweight, this strikes me as the more noteworthy acquisition.
It’s also the second upheaval of a noteworthy boxing news site this year after ProBox purchased BoxingScene, which has (in my opinion) led to a sharp decline in breaking news in favor of vapid thinkpieces from the likes of Paulie Malignaggi and Chris Algieri.
The Ring’s belts and rankings carry significant weight in this sport and should be under greater scrutiny going forward; there have been some notable cases of ownership overruling staff in newsrooms of late and I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content.
