There had been a few boxing promotions in Riyadh when I was staying there. Tyson Fury’s little brother comes to mind, as well as a selection of influencers and MMA fighters. The bills weren’t of sufficient interest though to drag me across town and keep me up long beyond my usual bedtime.
The undisputed heavyweight championship of the world is a different story though and there’s no way I was going to miss that, even if it was a two-hour flight from Al-Ula.
I’d picked a hotel in Riyadh that looked as if it was in walking distance of the Kingdom Arena, but the route followed some pretty major roads without pavements, and I concluded that walking was something that I’d only really want to do in an emergency.
I’d bought my ticket online a month or so earlier for two hundred riyals, which is only about forty-odd quid. At that time there were plenty of seats available, and I’d chosen one in the banked seating, square on to the ring and three rows from the front. My thinking was that if everyone on the floor area ended up standing, I’d still be able to see over their heads from my seat.
I arrived early at the Kingdom Arena. It’s a new venue that opened this year. It only took six months to construct and is big enough to stage football games with a thirty-thousand crowd. Al-Hilal are using it for home games and with a retractable roof and air-conditioning it’s suitable for any time of day or year.
The stewards were as brand new as the venue and directed me in a full lap around the stadium before grudgingly accepting that my entrance was the one where my taxi had dropped me off twenty minutes earlier. I received a wristband and headed inside with seven hours to go to the main event.
There was a garden area with food trucks and tables for those who didn’t want to watch the undercard. I was struck by how civilised it all was when there’s no beer, cocaine or blokes who had pre-gamed with a Peaky Blinders box-set binge.
I paused at one of the merchandise stalls and looked at the souvenir gloves signed by both Fury and Usyk. There was a time when I would have been tempted. In a past stage of my life I used to have memorabilia from all the linear heavyweight championship fights, going as far back as Jack Johnson. Most of it is long gone and these days I try to avoid filling my house with stuff like that. I even skipped the programmes, although mainly because the size was too big for my hand luggage backpack. In the end, I decided that keeping the wristband would be sufficient.
My seat was as good as I’d hoped and directly above an entrance tunnel to the floor area. In football terms I was close to the front of the lower tier, bang on the half-way line. The tunnel served as a celeb spotting area and a lot of those in the floor seats spent most of the undercard facing away from the ring and waiting for the likes of Ronaldo, Neymar Jr and Anthony Joshua to make their entrances.
As in the UK not many came in for the undercard and those who stayed outside missed out on some very good fights. Tom was watching on telly at home and his texts suggested that he was very impressed. I suppose that’s one of the benefits of the Saudi money in that it’s big enough to encourage fighters to take competitive contests.
As the clock ticked around to 1.30am we got a couple of songs from an American pop star called JID. I presume that he’s reasonably well known in certain circles. He appeared in a box suspended above the ring although I’ve no idea how he got up there. Perhaps he’d been hidden in the ceiling since lunchtime. After that we got the ring walks. Usyk first, despite having the most belts, then Fury, who I thought expended too much energy with his dancing.
Even if you didn’t see the fight, you probably still know the result. For what it’s worth I gave Usyk the first round and then Fury the next five. I thought it looked easy for Fury at that stage and Usyk didn’t seem able to get near to him. Fury took a breather in seven and eight, conceding those rounds, before the fight turned around in round nine. It could very easily have been stopped at that point in favour of the Ukrainian.
By the time Usyk took the tenth, I had him a point to the good. I gave the eleventh to Fury, although I remarked to the bloke from Stoke sat next to me that the solid punch landed by Usyk right on the bell might well have nicked it. I scored the twelfth in Fury’s favour too, giving him a one-point victory on my scorecard, but all that was needed was for the judges to disagree with me on any one of the close rounds and the belts would go the other way.
That’s what happened and overall, it felt like the right outcome. As the announcement was made, I legged it for the exit so that I could get one of the taxis waiting outside. That enabled me to have three hours sleep before needing to get up for my flight back to Al Ula. If the two of them do it all again, then so will I.
Trail of the Lion King 