The International Boxing Hall of Fame inducted Bob Yalen as part of their class of 2022 this past week. The ceremony enshrined Yalen’s name among boxing’s all-time great fighters, coaches, promoters and executives.
Yalen is a former Director of Boxing for ABC Sports, Director of Programming and Acquisitions at ESPN and producer for NBC Sports Olympic boxing coverage in 1996 and 2000. Yalen also worked as a consultant for SHOWTIME, CBS Sports and Fox Sports.
In 2018 he became the President and CEO of MTK Global.
Yalen stepped down from that position in April, shortly after the US government sanctioned suspected mob boss Daniel Kinahan. Kinahan founded the company that would become MTK Global. Yalen claimed that Kinahan stopped working with MTK in 2017. However, evidence exists to the contrary.
That evidence includes MTK’s top talents, including Tyson Fury, Billy Joe Saunders and Darren Till, being pictured with Kinahan and consistently recognizing him as their friend and personal advisor. In 2020 Fury publicly thanked Kinahan for negotiating his deals to fight Anthony Joshua. Soon after this it was revealed that Kinahan had also negotiated for Fury on a number of his previous fights.
The US government believes Irish-national Kinahan is the day-to-day leader of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, a billion dollar narcotics smuggling outfit that is believed to be responsible for a number of gangland killings across Ireland and Spain.
Kinahan is believed to reside in Dubai. He moved to the Middle East in 2016 after escaping an assassination attempt at an MTK boxing weigh-in show at Dublin’s Regency Hotel.
Insider’s Alan Dawson was at the Hall of Fame ceremony in Canastota, NY this week. He asked Yalen about MTK, which ceased operations in April citing intense scrutiny as a result of the Kinahan sanctions.
Yalen told Dawson he had “no comment” on the issue. When asked specifically about The Irish Sun’s report that there are ongoing investigations into MTK’s dealings with Kinahan, Yalen mimed washing his hands and said “I’ve got nothing to do with MTK. I resigned from the company.”
When asked his reasons for resigning from MTK, Yalen said that they were “personal”.
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