In response to the question of how fight fans would effectively budget for monthly pay-per-view fight streams, which are often in danger of reaching the $100 limit, Turki Alalshikh from Saudi Arabia offered to lower pay-per-view fight prices to $20.

Will it stop piracy? Will it build a fan base? What will it do to the market when other distributors are still charging the same fees?

Not much is known, but on Tuesday’s “Top News” show on ProBox TV, thoughtful former 140lb champion Chris Algieri offered his best predictions.

As BoxingScene reported in June, pay-per-view piracy has become rampant, with experts saying:“This is a huge problem and, on a low estimate, it takes away 30 percent of our purchases.”

“I don’t know if this is a way to combat piracy because it’s still $20 and if you want to steal it, you’re going to steal it – free is better than $20,” Algieri said. “Just do it for free. If you’re already losing money on your shows, I don’t understand $20…

“…Maybe make it free for a year to get everyone to understand who these (fighters) are, build their market value, build a fan base and then start charging market price a year later.”

But it can be considered a start, except for the IBF heavyweight title fight between England’s Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium on September 21 and the undisputed light heavyweight title fight between Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev on October 12.

“Because if (fans) have to pay (very expensively) every month for these fights, there’s going to be a barrier to entry to the sport,” Algieri said. “It’s very hard to develop stars when your favorite fighter has a price tag of hundreds of dollars a year — it’s very difficult for some people to be in a niche sport and hobby.

“It’s very expensive to go to fights. It’s very expensive to watch fights.”

As for the ripple effect, Algieri said he doesn’t expect a drop in prices from other distributors, like Premier Boxing Champions fights on Amazon Prime Video.

Apart from the oil revenues behind Saudi Arabia’s investment in sports, there is a profit margin that these businesses look after.

“I’m curious to see how this plays out and what the (pay-per-view) buys are going to be,” he said. “Are they going to go through the roof — a million buys? Or is it still 75,000?”

Algieri also touched on Alalshikh’s tendency to make predictions about upcoming matches before any other matches have even taken place.

He “fooled a few” by talking about a possible fight between former heavyweight champions Deontay Wilder and Joshua, only to watch Wilder get knocked out by Zhilei Zhang.

Alalshikh recently sparked a debate between Joshua and Tyson Fury despite both having major tests ahead of them.

“There’s potential for that to happen again,” Algieri said. “It changes the value of fights – not just the monetary value, but also in terms of what fans attach to a fight. It takes some of the shine – the shine – off of (scheduled) fights to say, ‘Yes, we want to see Tyson against Joshua, win or lose…’

“When you get too far ahead in chess, everything looks fake. Fight fans don’t want that. This isn’t WWE. This is a sport. You have to win to advance. It’s almost a tournament style. If you have people pulling the strings, they’re saying, ‘This is going to happen…’, ‘We’ll get there…’ it looks a lot more (staged).

“It opens the door to debate. If a fight can go either way and the guy we’re told is going to fight next wins, it makes things very risky for us as a sport. It looks more like entertainment than a competitive fight.”