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

Tim Bradley appeared on the podium this week to lecture Turki Al-Sheikh, telling him he has done nothing to improve boxing other than having some “good fights.” Tim feels that once Turk leaves the sport, things will be as bad as they were before he arrived.

Commissioner’s callout

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

It is unclear whether Turki wants to take on this kind of responsibility, as it would require a lot of hard work. He seems to be more interested in having good fights between the fighters he chooses. It will be Turki’s full-time job to become boxing commissioner if he can achieve that.

“Why don’t you help us build a union so the fighters can stand strong and get their own meadows or something,” Tim Bradley said on social media, lecturing Turki Al-Sheikh. “Why don’t you give us a World Boxing Council, someone who oversees the whole (sport)? I know we have the WBC, but you know what I mean.

“Someone who oversees it like the NFL (i.e. commissioner of sports administration, appointed by the teams in the league) and the NBA (commissioner, similar to the NFL, appointed by the teams).

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

“I’ll really support you, Turk, because this is what boxing really needs. When you leave, Turk, when you decide to leave, we’ll be back to square one. You’ve done some great fights (for example, Fury vs. Usyk & Beterbiev vs. Bivol), but Boxing hasn’t changed anything, you haven’t changed***.

Defining the future of boxing

“So my view on boxing is different from all of you. You’re going to get the fights you want, which is great. It’s great, but that’s not going to solve all the problems boxing has. We need one governing body that oversees the sport,” Bradley said. “In its entirety.”

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

Turk is just putting a band-aid on boxing.

🎥 @timbradliger #boxing pic.twitter.com/IRDdpYgurH

– Pound4Pound (@Pound4our4Pound) January 17, 2025

In the past, promoters around the world would put out many high-priced, low-quality cards, and a lot of interest in boxing disappeared. Much of the action was put behind a pay-per-view (PPV) system, preventing fans from watching the fights unless they were willing to pay $70 to watch most of the non-matches.

Promoters have made matters worse by always matching their fighters with opponents they can’t win. This still goes on today, and we’ve seen it on some Turkish cards where promoters stack undercards in fights that have no competitive value.