Anthony Joshua v Daniel Dubois is just the start of Saudi Arabia’s boxing revolution

Saudi Arabia has enabled an unprecedented run of blockbuster fights and, as Steve Bunce explains, fighters are set to benefit into next year and beyond thanks to Turki Al-Sheikh’s relentless appetite for boxing

Anthony Joshua is ready for his weekend dust up with Daniel Dubois at Wembley (Bradley Collyer/PA) (PA Wire)

They will have to build a vast stadium in Riyadh for the Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury fight next year. The fight will break every single record.

This evening, 96,000 paying fans will break the British attendance record to attend the IBF heavyweight championship fight between Daniel Dubois and Joshua at Wembley Stadium. It is the first stop in the UK for Riyadh Season, the series of events geared towards Saudi Vision 2030 and the country’s ambitions to reinvent itself. Led by Turki Al-Sheikh, the chairman to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Entertainment, the hope is that these global events will help transform the Saudi economy.

Al-Sheikh’s influence over the last few years has been transformational, too, harnessing seemingly limitless resources to strike previously inconceivable deals, producing compelling undercard fights and uniting bitter promotional rivals Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren to expand the sport’s potential.

It led, eventually, to the undisputed heavyweight title fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Fury, their rematch this December and, Al-Sheikh hopes next year, Joshua v Fury.

The final sold-out number for Joshua means that in six stadium fights, just under 500,000 people have flocked to see him throughout his career; it started in 2017 with 90,000 at Wembley against Wladimir Klitschko in his first main event outdoors. That was the real revolution.

Fury, who is due back in Saudi Arabia on 21 December in a second bout with Usyk, this time for just three belts instead of four, and is poised to face Joshua next year even if they both lose their next fight, as is the wish of Al-Sheikh. Indeed, their fight was officially announced back in June 2020, in a two-fight deal; it has been a frustrating saga ever since and it will finally and inevitably get solved by Saudi cash. Fury sold over 150,000 tickets in two stadium world title fights in 2022. Those are ridiculous numbers, and no Saudi cash was needed.

Usyk and Dubois will also feature in massive fights next year, probably in Saudi Arabia, too, but not exclusively. The pair met in Poland in front of nearly 60,000 in the summer of 2023.

The launch of the latest Riyadh Season, which is a loose umbrella of sport and entertainment events, including Liam Gallagher, before next year’s Oasis reunion, in support of Saturday’s main event. London will therefore serve as a future marker for more big fights away from Saudi capital, but still under the auspices of the fight game’s new powerbrokers.

The greatest promoters in history have traditionally taken their show on the road, putting on major fights under their banner in a foreign land; Don King set a paid attendance record in 1993 when over 132,000 people paid to fill the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City to watch their idol, Julio Cesar Chavez. The current heavyweight boom guarantees that the show will inevitably go on the road. There is bold talk of Nigeria and China in the future.

Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois react on stage ahead of the IBF Heavyweight title fight (Getty Images)

However, the super shows, where four or five big fights share the top billing, are likely to be – for the foreseeable future – in Saudi Arabia. And it will be the heavyweights that lead the way and, importantly, attract any reluctant passengers from other weight divisions. In the future, Terence Crawford, Gervonta Davis, Shakur Stevenson and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, arguably the four highest-profile boxers to have not yet fought in Saudi Arabia, could do deals. Crawford did fight on a Riyadh season card in August in Los Angeles and Stevenson was due to fight in Riyadh in October but injured his hand.

This Saturday’s show will be a spectacle – the undercard is impressive; the main event is quality – and it will happen again.

There are concerned whispers in boxing corridors that the so-called soul of British boxing is under threat from Saudi Arabian money. So far, in six shows since last October, 49 fights have taken place on Riyadh Season cards and that means that 98 men have probably received a career-high payday. There is a female world title fight on the show in Riyadh in October.

Anthony Joshua has sold out stadiums around the country throughout his career (PA Wire)

But it is too easy to forget that for decades and decades, British fighters had to go on the road to realise their dream of winning a world title and that meant fighting in a hostile land; the fights in Saudi Arabia are run and administered by the British Boxing Board of Control. It is not hostile, just hot.

All fighters, promoters and managers want the most amount of money for their services in an open business where trade is bartered. It's not complicated and it has never been complicated, it is just business in the boxing world.

Wembley Stadium in April 2022, when Tyson Fury beat Dillian Whyte (Getty)