Trail of the Lion King

I was due back in the UK for Christmas and New Year, but with the Usyk-Fury re-match scheduled for the 21^st December I delayed my return for a couple of days and rerouted my flight via Riyadh. I’d learned my lesson from their first fight about the difficulty in getting a taxi after the fight and this time I booked an apartment, or rather a ‘studio’, a ten-minute walk from the Kingdom Arena.

I’ve a feeling that I might have been the only person to ever stay for two consecutive nights in that building as most of the other rooms appeared to be occupied by couples renting them by the hour.

I’d bought my ticket well in advance on the secondary market, but by fight night there were still plenty on sale and it clearly hadn’t sold as well as the first bout. As last time, there were plenty of Brits around, with groups of blokes all dressed identically in tight polos, tailored shorts, running shoes and those little trainer socks. I wondered whether that’s how people dress now back home or whether that’s their ‘Dubai’ clobber.

My ticket was for the floor area this time and posh enough to give me access to a lounge where there was a constantly replenished supply of little cakes. There were free drinks too, although the queue for a coffee was sufficiently long that when I needed an early-hours caffeine boost it was much quicker to nip outside and buy one instead.

My seat was close enough to the ring for me to be able to watch the action, but as the seating wasn’t banked, I was glad of the screen above the ring that enabled me to miss nothing when people in front of me decided to stand up or go for a wander.

I’d delayed my arrival to watch the Boro draw with Plymouth, but even so, I only missed the opening undercard fight. Most of the supporting fights went the distance, with a shocking ‘home’ decision in the Fisher v Allen fight. The timings were running late until rising heavyweight star Moses Itauma managed to get things back on schedule with a first-round knockout in the penultimate bout. I was especially pleased about that as I had an early morning flight, and I didn’t want a delay to the main event to eat into the time available for sleep.

I found the main event a lot harder to score that their first fight as so many of the rounds seemed very close. I had it as even after twelve rounds, so was surprised at the announcement of a unanimous 116-112 decision, whichever way it went. I suppose that’s how it works though when the rounds are close. You could have a 120-108 shutout where one boxer just nicks every round as opposed to a 114-114 draw where one fella absolutely dominates for six rounds but narrowly loses the other six.

Anyway, as you know, Usyk took the decision and retained his belts. I doubt that I’d bother going to a third fight as it’s hard to see a different outcome.