Tim Bradley to Turki: create a boxing commissioner to oversee the sport

Tim Bradley took to his stand this week to lecture Turki Al-Sheikh, telling him that he has done nothing to improve boxing other than putting on some “good fights.” Tim feels that once Turki leaves the sport, things will still be as bad as before he arrived.

Commissioner’s call

Bradley says he wants Turki to create a commissioner-like person who will “oversee” the sport in the same way as the NFL and NBA. These leagues have appointed commissioners who oversee the management and trajectory of the teams.

It’s not clear if Turki would want to take on that kind of responsibility, as it would involve a lot of hard work. He seems more interested in making good fights among the fighters he selects. It would be a full-time job for Turki to become boxing commissioner if he could pull it off.

“Why don’t you help us build a union so the fighters can stand their ground and get their promoter or whatever,” Tim Bradley said on social media, lecturing Turki Al-Sheikh. “Why don’t you give us a World Boxing Council, someone to oversee everything (the sport)? I know we have the WBC, but you know what I mean.

“Someone to oversee like the NFL (that is, the commissioner for sports management, appointed by the league’s teams) and the NBA (commissioner, similar to the NFL, appointed by the teams).

“You can be based in the United States, or you can be based there (Saudi Arabia), and everyone can work together to unite boxing in the right way. If you do things like that, you get my attention. If you do things like that, I support you.

“I will support you, Turki, really, because that is what boxing really needs. When you’re gone, Turki, when you decide to leave, we’ll go back to where we started. You did some great fights (e.g. Fury vs. Usyk and Beterbiev vs. Bivol), but boxing hasn’t changed at all. You haven’t changed a damn thing.

Fixing the future of boxing

“So my point of view on boxing is different from all of you. You’ll all get the fights you want, which is great. It’s great, but that won’t solve all the problems boxing has. “We need a governing body that oversees the entire sport,” Bradley said.

Tim Bradley says that if Turki REALLY wants to save boxing 🥊, “he needs to start a union for new and old fighters and have boxing under a single governing body that governs the entire sport like the NBA and NFL.

Turk is just putting a band-aid on boxing.

🎥 @Timbradleyjr #Boxing pic.twitter.com/IRDdpYgurH

— Libra4Pound (@Pound4our4Pound) January 17, 2025

In the past, promoters around the world presented many high-priced, low-quality cards, and much of the interest in boxing disappeared. Too many events were put behind a PPV paywall, preventing fans from seeing the fights unless they were willing to pay $70 to see mostly uneven fights.

Promoters made things worse by always pitting their fighters against opponents they couldn’t win. That still continues today, and we’ve even seen it on some of Turki’s cards with promoters stacking cards on fights with no competitive value.