There’s excitement surrounding the whispers of how Saudi Arabia is planning to consolidate boxing, and there are also questions.

Considering what Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the kingdom’s General Entertainment Authority, has accomplished by staging the first undisputed heavyweight championship in a generation, by getting bitter-rival promoters to work together and by crafting a stacked card in Los Angeles, optimism abounds from a Monday report that a new boxing league is in the exploratory stages.

Exactly how that league would exist is unknown – would it cast boxing in the UFC model or arrange tournaments across various weight classes? – but the eagerness to find out is palpable.

“So far, what Turki Alalshikh has brought to boxing has been fantastic,” Chris Algieri said on Wednesday’s episode of ProBox TV’s “Deep Waters.” “The sport has been at an all-time high, [with] some great fights in the lower classes, and then Turki has come in and made the heavyweight division hot again. Really hot.”

Algieri echoed the axiom that boxing is only as healthy as the heavyweights.

“Now it’s healthy from top to bottom and we’re getting some of these ideas, these fresh thoughts,” Algieri, the former 140-pound world titleholder, said.

As first reported by Reuters, Saudi Arabia is mulling a multi-billion-dollar investment that would form an alliance of promoters and keep them as stakeholders while seeking to stage a series of world-championship-level bouts that have previously been denied by promotional or broadcast ties, or sanctioning body interference.

Whether it’s a deep card filled with even bouts and talented fighters – the UFC model – or a twist on the recent “5 vs 5” tournament that rival British promoters Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn staged in Saudi Arabia on June 1, “now you’ve got something to look forward to on Saturdays. Potentially,” former welterweight titleholder Paulie Malignaggi said on “Deep Waters.”

Despite all that, the veteran fighters wonder how an alliance that feels like a monopoly would play out.

“When this first came up – I’m a boxing fan, pessimistic – and I thought of all the bad things, how absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Algieri said. “But then I started thinking of all the good things.”

The matter of how to introduce this concept remains elusive at this hour, but it would provide for elements like a global commission to ensure fighter health and safety and year-round drug testing.

Malignaggi isn’t a fan of the “fantasy fights” Alalshikh has mentioned, such as 168-pound champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fighting recently undisputed 147-pound champion Terence Crawford.

“I want the contenders in there, too,” Malignaggi said. “You ‘X’ out a lot of contenders by never letting them into your ‘circle of trust.’”

If one possibility is to craft a tournament with multiple existing champions – at 140 pounds, for instance, four men wear world-title belts – Malignaggi suggests seeding the champions and filling in the remaining bracket with contenders placed there by qualified counselors.

“I don’t want to see the same eight guys fighting,” Malignaggi said. “I want to see [unbeaten three-division champion] Shakur Stevenson fight the top champion. If this is going to happen, it needs to be guided correctly. The potential is phenomenal.”