Adam Catterall said it plainly on the morning of February 26: “Boxing is at war.”

He’s right. But honestly, that might be too generous. A war implies two sides with a chance of winning. What’s happened to the British promotional establishment over the past few weeks looks a lot less like a war and a lot more like a takeover that was finished before the other side realized it started. Queensberry and Matchroom aren’t losing — they’ve already lost ground they’re not getting back.

The warning signs have been there for two weeks. Since the Conor Benn signing dropped, through the Warren billion-dollar lawsuit threat, through Ring Magazine’s inflammatory social media post, through the Fury-Makhmudov announcement — the pattern has been staring everyone in the face. And yet a huge chunk of the boxing world is still in denial about what just happened.

Here’s what Catterall was really getting at, and what too many people still won’t accept.

They Hit Everything at Once

What Sela and TKO have pulled off over the past eighteen months isn’t a normal promotional play. This was a coordinated campaign that went after every single pillar of British boxing’s commercial structure — at the same time.

Start with the talent. Conor Benn was the future of Matchroom’s roster. He was literally on the DAZN renewal poster the week before he walked. Eddie Hearn stuck by him through the adverse analytical finding in 2022, lent him money by his own admission, and put his personal credibility on the line to keep Benn fighting and relevant. Benn left for a reported $15 million one-fight deal and didn’t even pick up the phone on the way out. Hearn found out through an email from a lawyer. That’s cold. That’s also business when someone waves eight figures in your face.

Then there’s Fury. Warren is still technically his promoter — Fury’s manager Spencer Brown confirmed that to Boxing News — but the biggest fight of Fury’s 2026 is a stadium headliner at Tottenham Hotspur on Netflix, promoted by The Ring. Not Queensberry. Warren’s logo is nowhere on the poster. His operation isn’t running the show. His fighter is the main event on somebody else’s card.

Now look at the venue. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has become the home of mega-fight boxing in Britain. The Eubank Jr.-Benn rivalry filled it twice. Fury packed in nearly 60,000 against Chisora. That building belongs to the biggest nights Matchroom and Queensberry have ever produced on home soil. On April 11, Zuffa walks in there with fighters from both stables — and neither promoter’s name is on the event.

And then there’s distribution. Netflix has over 300 million subscribers worldwide. Paramount+ carries the regular Zuffa series. The Ring — owned by Alalshikh — provides the editorial platform, the rankings, and the belts. DAZN, which broadcasts both Matchroom and Queensberry, also has Alalshikh investment ties. That’s not competition. That’s encirclement.

The Flanking Was Done Before Anyone Noticed

This is the part that deserves real attention, because what Sela pulled off wasn’t a blunt-force money grab. It was patience followed by decisive strikes from every direction at once.

The Queensberry-Sela relationship started in September 2023 with an exclusivity deal. Warren’s company became the operational backbone of Saudi-backed boxing — the Riyadh Season cards, the Joshua bouts, the Fury-Usyk fights. Warren brought the expertise, the fighters, and the broadcast connections.

TKO then cut its own deal with Queensberry, gaining access to what Warren’s legal team calls proprietary digital data — including, allegedly, details of the Sela contract itself. And then, according to Queensberry’s claims, Sela and TKO inked a five-year deal with each other, launched Zuffa Boxing, and left Warren on the outside looking in.

Whether that holds up in court is another question. But the tactical result is already obvious. By the time Warren’s side figured out what happened, the new operation was already live — signing fighters, booking stadiums, distributing content on two of the biggest streaming platforms in the world. The move was made before the defense even got set.

Hearn’s situation looks different on paper but the outcome is the same. Matchroom wasn’t a direct Sela partner in the contractual sense. But his fighters have been picked off one by one — Benn is the biggest name so far, but Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez nearly left before Matchroom matched Zuffa’s offer. Jai Opetaia, the IBF cruiserweight champion linked to several established promoters, signed with Zuffa instead. The talent pipeline is being redirected in real time.

Why They Can’t Fight Back

Here’s the uncomfortable part that nobody in the industry wants to say out loud: Queensberry and Matchroom don’t have the tools to counter this.

Warren can sue for a billion dollars. Maybe he even has a case. But a lawsuit doesn’t undo what’s already happened. It doesn’t put his logo back on the Fury poster. It doesn’t stop Zuffa from signing more fighters or booking more venues. Litigation is a rearguard action — it fights over what was, not what’s coming.

Hearn can warn about a “big freeze” and question the legitimacy of Zuffa’s championship belts. He can point out that the early cards at the Meta Apex were thin. He can crack jokes about the belt design. But his most marketable fighter just left for a payday Matchroom couldn’t touch, and the card Benn landed on is headlined by Fury on Netflix at a 60,000-seat stadium in London. The gap between what Hearn says and what Zuffa does keeps getting wider.

The core problem is money. Sela covers fighter purses. TKO collects a reported $10 million per event for organizing and promotion with zero downside risk. When the entity writing the checks is a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, no war chest in British boxing — or anywhere in traditional boxing — can compete with that. Warren and Hearn built what they built by being sharper and tougher than the next guy. Those qualities still count. They don’t count enough when the other side has essentially unlimited capital and owns the distribution chain top to bottom.

What Comes Next

Zuffa has laid out plans for up to 16 events in 2026, with international cards and a handful of marquee superfights per year. The Ali Revival Act keeps moving through Congress. If that legislation passes, Zuffa gets the legal framework to run its own rankings and championships entirely outside the traditional sanctioning bodies. At that point, the old model doesn’t just face competition — it faces irrelevance.

Anyone still debating whether Zuffa Boxing is “good for the sport” or writing it off as a cash-burning vanity project is missing what’s happening right in front of them. The borders have been crossed. The most valuable assets have been taken. The infrastructure is up and running. April 11 at Tottenham isn’t the opening shot — it’s the flag going up over territory that’s already been claimed.

Catterall called it a statement of intent. It looks more like a statement of fact. The old structure of British boxing — two dominant promoters, two broadcast deals, a shared pool of fighters and venues — has been taken apart by an operation that found every pressure point and hit them all at once. That’s not hype. That’s not speculation. That’s what the calendar says is happening on April 11 in North London, and no amount of lawsuits, press conferences, or social media jabs is going to change it.