Reports first detailed in The Telegraph and echoed across the UK boxing media suggest Queensberry believes Sela and TKO later negotiated and signed a separate five-year deal to launch Zuffa Boxing without their involvement. Warren says the new arrangement left his company out of a project it helped put together, cutting off future participation in Saudi-backed events and the revenue associated with them.
The Telegraph reported that “legal letters were traded like jabs in the first round of the fight,” and that Warren intends to take the matter to the High Court if the matter is not resolved.
Since the October 2023 crossover between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, Saudi Arabia’s footprint in elite boxing has grown. Bigger fights followed and broadcast lineups expanded as TKO, the parent company behind the UFC’s rise to a global powerhouse, entered the sport through Zuffa.
For decades, promoters have built events piece by piece. The Sela-TKO alignment points to a tighter structure where fighters, television and promotion operate under one roof.
Queensberry’s roster has been central to Saudi events, with Tyson Fury among the main attractions during the early Riyadh shows. If relations harden, those tensions will not remain confined to boardrooms.
Warren’s $1 billion figure reads as a statement about valuation as much as compensation. This reflects how profitable he believes continued involvement in Saudi boxing would have been. Whether that number survives legal scrutiny is unclear. The matter remains in the alert stage, and no detailed response from Sela or TKO has been publicly reported beyond rejecting the claims.
The expansion looked seamless from the outside. Court inquiry will test how safe the foundation really is.
