Teófimo López accuses Turki Alalshikh of intentionally harming Canelo Alvarez occasion

The WBO tremendous light-weight champion, Teófimo López, has pointed to His Excellency Turki Alalshikh as accountable for the battle between two main sporting occasions on September 14 in Las Vegas. That night time, Canelo Álvarez’s battle towards Edgar Berlanga on the T-Cell Area coincided with UFC 306 on the Las Vegas Sphere, headlined by Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili.

López, an in depth good friend of Canelo, said that the overlapping dates damage his compatriot. Though Canelo’s occasion generated $17 million in ticket gross sales and 650,000 pay-per-view buys, UFC 306 surpassed these figures with $22 million in ticket gross sales. Based on Teófimo López, Alalshikh, a member of the Saudi royal household and chief of the Riyadh Season pageant, a UFC sponsor, deliberately scheduled the occasion on the identical date to have an effect on Canelo.

“The Turki man [Turki Alalshikh], I simply suppose that for somebody that desires to… For this reason… You bought to take a look at the indicators. For somebody who desires to make boxing nice once more… You don’t schedule the identical occasion with the UFC and Canelo Alvarez [on] the identical night time,” López said.

The battle between Canelo and Alalshikh, in line with Teófimo López, stems from a earlier dispute.

In August, a possible battle between Canelo and Terence Crawford was mentioned, however negotiations failed attributable to Canelo’s excessive monetary calls for. López implied that Alalshikh retaliated by selecting the Las Vegas Sphere and utilizing his affect to attract extra consideration to the UFC occasion.

“You don’t return round and dig at it by saying, let’s get to the Sphere as a result of now we have the funds,” López said.

Though UFC 306 was introduced in June, a month earlier than Canelo confirmed his battle with Berlanga, López argues that the coincidence was not unintentional. Whereas he didn’t declare it was a deliberate plan, he urged that cautious enterprise selections had been made to generate extra income and overshadow Canelo’s battle.