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 that he has done nothing to improve boxing other than make a few “good fights”. Tim feels that once Turki leaves the sport, things will be just as bad as before he arrived.

Commissioner Exclamation

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 that kind of responsibility, as it would be a lot of hard work. He seems more interested in good fights between fighters he chooses. It would be a full-time job for Turki to become the boxing commissioner if he could make it happen.

“Why don’t you help us build a union so the fighters can stand strong 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 who looks over the whole (sport)? I know we have the WBC, but you know what I mean.

“Someone to oversee like the NFL (ie commissioner for running the sport, appointed by the teams in the league) and the NBA (commissioner, similar to the NFL, appointed by teams).

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

“I’ll really get behind you, Turki, because that’s what boxing really needs. When you’re gone, Turki, when you decide to go, we’re going to be back to square one. You’ve made some great fights (eg Fury vs. Usyk & Beterbiev vs. Bivol), but boxing hasn’t changed a thing. You haven’t changed s***.

Fixing Boxing’s future

“So, my boxing point of view is different from yours. You all get the fights you want, which is great. That’s great, but it’s not going to solve all the problems that boxing has. We need one governing body that looks over the whole sport,” said Bradley.

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

Turk just puts a band-aid on box-

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

— Pound4Pound (@Pound4our4Pound) January 17, 2025

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

The promoters made things worse by always matching their fighters against opponents who couldn’t win. This continues today, and we’ve even seen it on some of Turki’s cards with promoters stacking the undercards in fights with no competitive value.