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

Tim Bradley got on his soapbox this week to lecture Turki Al-Sheikh, telling him he's done nothing to improve boxing other than put on some “good fights”. Tim thinks that once Turki leaves the sport, things will be just as bad as they were before he arrived.

Commissioner Callout

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

It is unclear whether Turki would want to take on such a responsibility, as it would be a lot of hard work. He seems more interested in making good fights between fighters he chooses. It would be a full-time job for Turki to become a boxing commissioner if he could do that.

“Why don't you help us build a union so the fighters can stand strong and get a 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 the whole (sport)? I know we have the WBC but you know what I mean.

“Someone to oversee like the NFL (i.e. commissioner of sports management appointed by the league's teams) and NBA (commissioner, similar to the NFL, appointed by teams).

“You can have the headquarters in America and you can have the headquarters there (Saudi Arabia) and they can all work together to put boxing back together the right way. If you do things like that, you get my attention. If you do such things, then I will have your back.

“I'll stand behind you Turki, I really do, because boxing really needs this. When you're gone, Turki, when you decide to leave, we'll be back to square one. You made great fights (eg Fury vs Usyk & Beterbiev vs Bivol) but boxing didn't change anything. You haven't changed shit.

Fixing the future of boxing

“So my boxing point of view is different from your point of view. You all get the fights you want which is great. It's fantastic, but it won't solve all the problems boxing has. We need one governing body to look at the whole sport,” Bradley said.

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

Turk just puts a Band-Aid on the boxing-

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

— Pound4Pound (@Pound4our4Pound) January 17, 2025

In the past, promoters all over the world put on very expensive, low quality cards and much of the interest in boxing disappeared. Too many events were put behind a PPV paywall, preventing fans from watching fights unless they were willing to pay $70 to watch mostly mismatches.

Promoters made it worse by always pitting their fighters against opponents they couldn't win. This continues today and we've even seen it on some of the Turki cards with promoters stacking the undercards in fights with no competitive value.