Over the course of the last few weeks, several boxing stories have dropped. We watched Showtime air its last boxing event after nearly 38 years of broadcasting the sport. From there, PBC, who had been calling Showtime their broadcasting home, ended up signing a huge deal with Amazon, so we’ve got one major promotion secured and accounted for.

That brings us to Top Rank. Bob Arum, Top Rank’s founder and CEO, has been talking about selling the company for years. It would be a costly expenditure for whomever decided to take the plunge—Nash estimates the asking price to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $200M-$300M.

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The combat sports grapevine has had rumors swirling around that Endeavor, the parent company of the UFC, could be interested in snapping up the promotion with one of, if no the most extensive library in the sport. The roster that Arum has amassed is hefty, as well and probably more important than the roster are the many connections and unofficial partners Arum has cultivated.

His willingness to work with other promotions and fighters outside his stable has made news frequently, so potential buyers would definitely be getting their money’s worth. The other side of this is how hard it is to make money—or should I say the kind of money that the lopsided split Endeavor/UFC has with the athletes currently under their promotion affords them— when the Ali Act prevents them from operating the way they do with their MMA business.

Nash weighs all the pros of why Endeavor would be interested and the cons of why they wouldn’t. We even discuss why Golden Boy Promotions would likely never be in the running for a purchase.

And of course we discussed Francis Ngannou’s big news of a boxing match with Anthony Joshua. The two former champs are set to clash in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this Spring (tentative date is March 8, 2024). Nash looked at how much Ngannou could be making and noted that there’s a very good chance that Francis could out-earn Conor McGregor this year and might be on track to make the Forbes list of highest paid athletes.

Finally, we discussed the flood of Saudi money coming into both MMA and boxing. From pricey site fees to broadcast partners, and what weight divisions they are laser-focused on, we tried to hit all the topics we could think of.

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