Many believe the aforementioned Americans to be the top dogs of their respective divisions, with all of them having established themselves as top 10 pound-for-pound operators.
At lightweight, three-weight world champion Stevenson is widely regarded as the very best, especially following his WBC title defence against William Zepeda in July.
As for WBO champion Haney, a dominant victory to dethrone Brian Norman Jr in November has made a sizable imprint on the welterweight division, putting him above fellow titlists Mario Barrios, Lewis Crocker and Rolando Romero in the consensus rankings.
And yet, while these three fighters are now approaching their 30s, WBO lightweight champion Abdullah Mason, aged just 21, is slowly but surely nipping at their heels.
The young prodigy claimed his major title at 135lbs with a unanimous decision victory over Sam Noakes, who gave a plucky effort himself, in November.
And while we are yet to see him dive into the deep end of elite competition, Bradley nonetheless believes that Mason represents a serious issue for any champion.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Hall of Famer Bradley predicts a tremendously bright future for the sport’s youngest current world champion.
“Not many guys win world championships at the age of 21. That’s rare territory. For him to do it in his first 12-round fight, and do it overseas, that should tell you already how strong, mentally, this kid is.
“Abdullah is still raw but, even with his rawness, and his toughness and his grit – and his skills on top of that – he is a problem.
“When I say [he’s] a problem for everybody, [that means] for everybody. That means Shakur; that means Haney; that means Teofimo Lopez; that means [IBF super-lightweight champion Richardson] Hitchins. All these dudes, they’re going to have issues with this guy.”
With many expressing similar thoughts to Bradley, Mason is widely expected to remain at 135lbs, at least for a short while longer, before bidding to become a multi-weight world champion.
I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t heard of Great Wall Motor Company (GWM) by now. But you probably have heard about Souo S2000, the monstrous eight-cylinder, two-liter cruiser bike from China. Now it’s reportedly coming to the US.
We covered the radical motorcycle back in 2024 when it first broke out, and safe to say it had a lot of people talking. And when you have a 2-liter boxer eight-cylinder engine on a production motorcycle that’s linked to an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, it is bound to.
Now, Autopian reports that a representative from GWM confirmed to the outlet at this year’s CES that the bike is set to make its way Stateside. Now that is big news, considering the company has zero presence in the US so far.
Top speed? 130 mph (209 km/h). 0–60 time: 3.7-seconds
Souo
But it doesn’t sound completely impossible. That’s because GWM already exports to over 170 countries with 1,000 sales channels across the globe. And in case you didn’t know, it ranks among the top 25 automakers worldwide is a big feat, all for a relatively new company that didn’t begin producing automobiles until 1984.
Speaking about the motorcycle itself, the Souo S2000 is the brainchild of GWM chairman Wei Jianjun. Think Honda Gold Wing and BMW K1600 – and multiply the monstrosity in multiples of ten.
Powering the tourer is an eight-cylinder engine in a horizontally opposed setup. It makes 154 horsepower and 140 lb-ft (190 Nm) of torque. Top speed: 130 mph (209 km/h). 0–60 time? 3.7-seconds. But that’s not all that’s noteworthy about it.
For starters, it also gets a 1.8 mph (3 km/h) reverse gear … because who in their right mind would think about backing up a 1,016-lb (460-kg) motorcycle by foot?
The 4-valve, DOHC, horizontally-opposed, eight-cylinder, two-liter engine is a sculpture in its own right
Souo
A bolt-free welded aluminum frame serves as the chassis on a three-tier double wishbone front suspension that GWM says is a world first. Braking is taken care of by Brembo 4-piston calipers on both ends, while its 71.3-inch (1811 mm) wheelbase and an incredibly low-for-its-size seat height of 29.1-inch (740 mm) suggest even shorter folks can get on it with ease.
Elsewhere, the motorcycle comes with a huge 12.3-inch instrument panel with OTA updates, heated handlebars, heated seats, and rear parking sensors. You also get an automatic parking brake, ABS, stability control, cruise control, rear warning system, blind spot monitoring, an electrically adjustable windshield, and an eight-speaker sound system to keep you entertained on the road.
When launched, it was revealed that the Souo S2000 would only produce 200 units. 88 of those were Founders Editions that featured carbon fiber parts, 24-karat gold accents, and the chairman’s signature imprinted on the fuel tank. The standard variant, however, was priced around the $29,000 mark.
Souo’s first motorcycle comes with a huge 12.3-inch instrument panel with OTA updates, heated handlebars, heated seats, and rear parking sensors
Souo
As of now, we don’t quite know how GWM intends to bring the motorcycle to the USA, considering the tariffs – but the company representative did mention to Autopian that it should be priced around US$30,000 when it does eventually arrive in the country.
He also revealed that GWM intends to introduce the Souo brand throughout Europe and Australia this year, before going on to South America and, eventually, landing in North America in 2027.
Outside of two-wheels, what’s particularly interesting was what we might spot this and similar monstrous engines from GWM in cars too, as Car And Driver reported. GWM displayed two engines at CES – this very 2.0-liter flat-eight and a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8.
GWM is planning to expand to Europe and Australia this year, before going on to South America and, eventually, landing in North America in 2027
Souo
“We can put this V-8 engine in other vehicles in the future,” summed representative Shenghao Tang at GWM’s stand. “This is not just for motorcycles. It’s for cars.”
Watch: At the scene of Spain’s worst rail disaster in over a decade
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has promised to get to the bottom of why two high-speed trains collided in southern Spain killing at least 40 people, as rescuers continue to search the wreckage.
After visiting the site of the crash, Sanchez also announced three days of national mourning for victims.
More than 120 more people were injured as carriages on a Madrid-bound train derailed and crossed over to the opposite tracks, colliding with an oncoming train in Adamuz on Sunday evening.
The crash is the worst the country has seen in more than a decade.
Rail network operator Adif said the collision happened at 19:45 local time (18:45 GMT) on Sunday, about an hour after one of the trains left Málaga heading north to Madrid, when it derailed on a straight stretch of track near the city of Córdoba.
The force of the crash pushed the carriages of the second train into an embankment, according to Transport Minister Óscar Puente. He added that most of those killed and injured were in the front carriages of the second train, which was travelling south from Madrid to Huelva.
Rescue teams said the twisted wreckage of the trains made it difficult to recover people trapped inside the carriages.
Sanchez visited the site of the crash with senior officials on Monday afternoon.
“This is a day of sorrow for all of Spain, for our entire country,” he told reporters.
“We are going to get to the truth, we are going to find the answer, and when that answer about the origin and cause of this tragedy is known, as it could not be otherwise, with absolute transparency and absolute clarity, we will make it public.”
Puente said an investigation could take at least a month, describing the incident as “extremely strange”.
Reuters
Rescuers are still searching the wreckage at the crash site
EPA
Pedro Sánchez travelled to Spain to pay tribute to the people killed
But Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed source briefed on initial investigations as saying experts had found a faulty joint on the rails, which was causing a gap between rail sections to widen as trains travelled over it. They added that the joint was key to identifying the cause of the accident.
Spain’s El País newspaper said it was not clear whether the fault was a cause or a result of the crash.
Four hundred passengers and staff were on board the two trains, the rail authorities said. Emergency services treated 122 people, with 41, including children, still in hospital. Of those, 12 are in intensive care.
Puente said the death toll “is not yet final”. Officials are working to identify the dead.
The type of train involved in the crash was a Freccia 1000, which can reach top speeds of 400 km/h (250 mph), a spokesperson for the Italian rail company Ferrovie dello Stato told Reuters.
Salvador Jimenez, a journalist with RTVE who was on one of the trains, said the impact felt like an “earthquake”.
“I was in the first carriage. There was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed,” Jimenez said.
Footage from the scene appears to show some train carriages had tipped over on their sides. Rescue workers can be seen scaling the train to pull people out of the lopsided train doors and windows.
A Madrid-bound passenger, José, told public broadcaster Canal Sur: “There were people and screaming, calling for doctors.”
All high-speed services between Madrid and the southern cities of Malaga, Cordoba, Sevilla and Huelva have been suspended until Friday.
Watch: Footage inside Spanish train as passengers evacuate from crash
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia said they were following news of the disaster “with great concern” and offered their “most heartfelt condolences”.
The emergency agency in the region of Andalusia urged any crash survivors to contact their families or post on social media that they are alive.
The Spanish Red Cross has deployed emergency support services to the scene, while also offering counselling to families nearby.
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez from the Red Cross told RNE radio: “The families are going through a situation of great anxiety due to the lack of information. These are very distressing moments.”
In 2013, Spain suffered its worst high-speed train derailment in Galicia, north-west Spain, which left 80 people dead and 140 others injured.
Spain’s high-speed rail network is the second largest in the world, behind China, connecting more than 50 cities across the country. Adif data shows the Spanish rail is more than 4,000km long (2,485 miles).
new video loaded: Fire at Pakistani Mall Leaves Over 20 Dead
A fire tore through one of the busiest wholesale markets in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, over the weekend, leaving over 20 dead and dozens still missing on Monday.
U.S. stock futures dropped late Monday after global equities sold off as President Donald Trump launches a trade war against NATO allies over his Greenland ambitions.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average sank 401 points, or 0.81%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.91%, and Nasdaq futures sank 1.13%.
Markets in the U.S. were closed in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. Earlier, the dollar dropped as the safe haven status of U.S. assets was in doubt, while stocks in Europe and Asia largely retreated.
On Saturday, Trump said Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland will be hit with a 10% tariff starting on Feb. 1 that will rise to 25% on June 1, until a “Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”
The announcement came after those countries sent troops to Greenland last week, ostensibly for training purposes, at the request of Denmark. But late Sunday, a message from Trump to European officials emerged that linked his insistence on taking over Greenland to his failure to be award the Nobel Peace Prize.
The geopolitical impact of Trump’s new tariffs against Europe could jeopardize the trans-Atlantic alliance and threaten Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
But Wall Street analysts were more optimistic on the near-term risk to financial markets, seeing Trump’s move as a negotiating tactic meant to extract concessions.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, described the gambit as “escalate to de-escalate” and pointed out that the timing of his tariff announcement ahead of his appearance at the Davos World Economic Forum this week is likely not a coincidence.
“I’ll leave others to question the merits of that approach, and potential longer-run geopolitical fallout from it, but for markets such a scenario likely means some near-term choppiness as headline noise becomes deafening, before a relief rally in due course when another ‘TACO’ moment arrives,” he said in a note on Monday, referring to the “Trump always chickens out” trade.
Similarly, Jonas Goltermann, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics, also said “cooler heads will prevail” and downplayed the odds that markets are headed for a repeat of last year’s tariff chaos.
In a note Monday, he said investors have learned to be skeptical about all of Trump’s threats, adding that the U.S. economy remains healthy and markets retain key risk buffers.
“Given their deep economic and financial ties, both the US and Europe have the ability to impose significant pain on each other, but only at great cost to themselves,” Goltermann added. “As such, the more likely outcome, in our view, is that both sides recognize that a major escalation would be a lose-lose proposition, and that compromise eventually prevails. That would be in line with the pattern around most previous Trump-driven diplomatic dramas.”
Norway PM Jonas Gahr Store rebuked US President Trump after Trump texted that since Norway “decided not to” give him the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s no longer obliged to “think purely of Peace” and repeated his aim of US control of Greenland. Store said the prize is decided by an independent committee.
MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. The below article originally appeared in Tim Ingham’s latest ‘Tim’s Take’ email, issued exclusively to MBW+ subscribers.
What’s less appreciated by many in the industry is how long this process has been going on at WMG, how large it is, and how visible its impact is becoming.
Example: WMG now has no dedicated recorded music head in either the UK or Germany – the world’s third and fourth largest recorded music territories, per IFPIdata.
(UK boss Tony Harlowexited last year, as did the duo who oversaw Warner’s German/Central Europe outfit: Doreen Schimk and Fabian Drebe. Warner Music’s combined Central Europe and Benelux business unit is now run by Netherlands-based Niels Walboomers.)
Warner Music also has no in situ recorded music boss in another Top 10 territory, Canada: New York-based Eric Wongleads its Canadian operation from the US (alongside his twoadditional roles!). Former WM Canada boss, Kristen Burke, exited in October.
These are just a handful of significant changes that have sprung from a three-part restructuring program launched after Robert Kyncl became WMG CEO in January 2023:
In March 2023, Kyncl announced WMG was laying off270 people, a move which slashed $50M from the firm’s annual pre-tax costs;
In September 2024, Warner confirmed it was cutting a further 750 employees, the majority from its ‘owned and operated media’ subsidiaries, resulting in additional annual cost savings of $260M;
And in July 2025, Kyncl announced a further $300M of annual cost-savings, of which $170M would be achieved via layoffs. (Coincidentally, $170M is also the amount WMG expects to pay out in severance as a result of these changes.)
WMG didn’t reveal a specific number of roles that would be eliminated in its 2025 round – possibly because it would have been large enough to gobsmack.
Based on what we know from 2023 and 2024’s WMG cutbacks (and their average per-employee severance), I’d estimate 2025’s round will result in the loss of around 1,000 additional roles.
To recap: ~1,000 roles cut in 2023-24, and a further ~1,000 targeted in the 2025 plan.
These cuts have concentrated in WMG’s label business: through the program to date, 91% of redundancy expense has landed in Warner’s Recorded Music division, with 2% in publishing, and 7% in Corporate.
WMG’s most recent annual report confirms that the 2023 and 2024 restructuring plans are now both “substantially complete” – i.e. the ~1,000 roles earmarked for redundancy in stages one and two have already been extinguished.
As for the additional estimated ~1,000 job cuts mapped out in 2025?
Over half the associated severance – $90M of $170M – was paid before the end of September 2025, suggesting Warner is largely done.
The impact of the restructuring is starting to show up in WMG’s public numbers.
At the close of its FY 2025 (September), Warner counted 5,500 employees around the world, according to its annual SEC report.
That was down by 700 people versus the equivalent figure in 2022.
Factoring in new hires, I expect Warner’s three-pronged restructuring program will ultimately reduce total staff volume by about 25% – from 6,200 employees before Kyncl’s arrival in 2023, closer to 4,700 by the end of this year.
Not all of that headcount reduction will be achieved through layoffs; some will come from asset disposals.
As I’ve written before, Warner’s recent sale of Songkick to Suno jettisoned 25 staff. Other employees exited when WMG offloaded its non-core media assets including UPROXX in 2024.
A further asset sale appears imminent: recent WMG filings confirm that merch platform EMP is being “held for sale” by the major.
(MBW first told you in August that Warner was looking to sell EMP, complete with a $70 million write-down in the asset’s value.)
Why the cuts – and where’s the money going?
Throughout WMG’s three-year cutbacks program, Robert Kyncl has insisted that – in addition to being accretive to margin – Warner would look to reinvest a portion of the savings into A&R.
The numbers show Kyncl is coming good on this promise.
In FY 2025, according to its SEC filings, Warner Music Group spent USD $2.34 billion on ‘A&R’ across records and publishing (this figure includes royalties and advances paid to talent, plus studio costs).
That A&R figure was up 8%, or by $175 million, versus the prior year.
It was also up by $382 million vs. the equivalent figure in the year before Kyncl joined WMG (FY 2022).
Most importantly to Warner’s shareholders, WMG’s restructuring program has also helped drive up the firm’s margins.
In FY 2022, WMG’s Adjusted OIBDA (Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization) represented 19% of its annual revenues. By FY 2025, that figure had climbed to 22%.
An OIBDA margin in the mid-twenties will be next on investors’ wish list.
The bigger picture – and a platform for growth
Of course, Warner isn’t alone in making cutbacks to its workforce. Multiple industry players are sharpening their focus on profitability – while taking better advantage of technological efficiencies, and recalibrating resource towards high-growth markets.
Universal Music Group, as mentioned, has its own ‘realignment’ program underway, designed to produce EUR €250M (around USD $290M) in annual cost savings. UMG’s Boyd Muir confirmed last summer that UMG expected to be around two-thirds of the way through this two-phase plan by the end of calendar 2025.
Efficiency-seeking moves can also be seen at firms like Believe, which just this week eliminated the CEO role at key subsidiary TuneCore. (Following the departure of long-time TuneCore boss, Andreea Gleeson, the DIY platform will now be CEO-less – overseen by Believe’s global head of music, Romain Vivien.)
Warner, though, is arguably making the most visible reductions, and the most material cuts in terms of percentage of total workforce affected.
Far from being a barrier to growth, this rapid restructuring under Robert Kyncl could yet prove to be a launchpad for expansion.
Warner can now look to drive topline revenue growth through inorganic means – without risking the dilution of its margin to levels that might trouble public investors.
Part of this inorganic revenue drive will, no doubt, come from catalog acquisitions via WMG’s $1.2 billion JV with Bain Capital.
But, as I’ve previously pointed out, Warner also has a serious issue on its hands when it comes to servicing independents – with ADA struggling to compete with the scale of The Orchard (and AWAL) at Sony, and Virgin Music Group at UMG.
Robert Kyncl has previously expressed a preference to “build” rather than “buy” WMG’s independent distribution operation. And in a service-based (rather than rights-ownership-based) field, there are arguments for why this makes sense.
But with WMG‘s turnover now roughly half the size of UMG’s – and UMG set to swallow Downtown/FUGA in the weeks ahead – is now the time for Kyncl’s team to make an acquisitive move in the expanding indie space?
Obvious targets for such a swoop would include ONErpm, UnitedMasters, Symphonic, and the fast-growing TooLost.
But I heard a whisper over the festive break that Bruno Guez’s Revelatorwas attracting heavy acquisitive interest. It could be a good fit for Warner.
Revelator would come with a respected tech stack that WMG could ingest and develop.
It also specializes in FUGA-esque white label services for indie labels – a potential turn-key solution for a major music company looking to rival FUGA when/if it falls under Virgin Music Group’s umbrella.
In calendar Q3, Warner’s quarterly turnover (seasonally boosted by Oasis tour merch sales) was around USD $1.3 billion ahead of HYBE’s – and around $1.0 billion behind Sony Music Group’s, according to MBW calculations.
Meanwhile, Warner will be hyper-aware of its status in the global industry pecking order right now.
As I reported in November, WMG is nudging nearer to the day when its revenues are, in real terms, closer to those of HYBE than they are to Sony’s music rights business.
This year, HYBE will manage one of the most hotly-anticipated (and hotly-monetized) live shows of all time: the return of BTS after four years away, via a 79-date world tour.
In 2019, Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation, said that a billionpeople (!) had visited his company’s platforms to try and grab tickets to BTS’s then-concert run.
I’m not fully convinced an eighth of the world’s population were crazed about J-Hope and co (there would have been plenty of bots – and plenty of K-pop megafans willing to use them).
But it certainly sets the scene for what will be one of the worldwide industry’s biggest blockbuster money-makers in 2026.
With a supposed ‘independent’ in HYBE pulling the strings, expect plenty more discussion about the definition of ‘major’ music companies and ‘non-major’ music companies in the months ahead – and where both Warner and HYBE fit on the spectrum.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the bloc has “no interest to pick a fight, but we will hold our ground”.
Donald Trump has vowed to “100%” follow through on his threat to impose tariffs on European countries who oppose his demand to take control of Greenland.
European allies have rallied around Greenland’s sovereignty. Denmark’s foreign minister emphasised the US president cannot threaten his way to ownership of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated the UK’s position that the future of Greenland is for “Greenlanders and for the Danes alone” to decide.
On Monday, Trump declined to rule out the use of force and insisted he would press ahead with the threatened tariffs on goods arriving in the US from the UK and seven other Nato-allied countries.
Asked by NBC News if he would use force to seize Greenland, Trump answered: “No comment”.
The US president said he would charge Britain a 10% tariff “on any and all goods” sent to the US from 1 February, increasing to 25% from 1 June, until a deal is reached for Washington to purchase Greenland from Denmark.
Trump said the same would apply to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland – all of whom are members of the defence alliance Nato which was founded in 1949.
Asked if he will follow through on the tariff threat, Mr Trump told NBC News: “I will, 100%.”
AFP via Getty Images
Trump added: “Europe ought to focus on the war with Russia and Ukraine because, frankly, you see what that’s gotten them… That’s what Europe should focus on – not Greenland.”
Denmark has warned that US military action in Greenland would spell the end of Nato. In recent days, Greenland has received support from European members of the alliance – some even sent a handful of troops to Greenland last week in a move seen as symbolic.
However, Trump followed that deployment with an announcement to impose tariffs on the eight Nato allies.
Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that Europe had to show President Trump tariff threats were “not the way forward”.
“We have red lines that can’t be crossed,” he told Sky News. “You can’t threaten your way to ownership of Greenland. I have no intention of escalating this situation.”
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the alliance will keep working with Denmark and Greenland on the security of the Arctic.
The European Union is to hold an emergency summit in Brussels for its leaders on Thursday where they will discuss how to respond to Trump’s latest threat to take over Greenland.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the bloc has “no interest to pick a fight, but we will hold our ground”.
“But trades threats are not the way to go about this,” Kallas added. “Sovereignty is not for trade.”
In his reply – seen by the BBC – Jonas Gahr Støre explained that an independent committee, not the government of Norway, awards the prize which last October went to Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado.
“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” Støre added.
Trump also addressed the text message exchange in Monday’s interview and said: “Norway totally controls it [the Nobel Prize] despite what they say.
“They like to say they have nothing to do with it, but they have everything to do with it.”
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