Prince Khalid’s Skill Challenge Entertainment sets out ambitious agenda for boxing in Saudi Arabia

Amer Abdallah is the director of Boxing at Skill Challenge Entertainment (SCEE), owned by Prince Khalid bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia.

Last week Abdallah sat down with Arab News in Dubai to discuss a number of topics, including the development of boxing in Saudi Arabia, his involvement in getting some of the biggest potential fights staged in the Kingdom, the timelines of those fights, and some updates on the boxers he advises.

For people who don’t know much about boxing in Saudi Arabia, can you describe your intentions for the development of a boxing culture in the Kingdom?

We want to start with the grassroots movement, and that was part of Prince Khalid’s vision, to bring boxing back into the Kingdom and start building it from the bottom. We’re going to start incorporating training camps, not so much just for the fighters, but also for the trainers so that they can teach the fighters.

But you’re only as good as the best guy in the gym, so we also want bring in established fighters, experienced fighters, world champion fighters to host their training camps in the Kingdom, to train in the Kingdom. We can bring these coaches, bring these fighters to see how these champions trained.

The upcoming generation can model after that. They start echoing those movements, and they start seeing things and they start developing themselves.

You know, visionary education is everything; to be able to actually see it, as opposed to just hearing it.

Combat sports have really taken off in the Middle East these past few years. What do you think are the reasons for this?

I think that we all love combat sports, not just in the Middle East. Everybody loves a good fight.

There’s nothing like the best fighter in the world fighting the