Undefeated in 35 professional fights and a millionaire many times over, Tyson Fury rarely dishes out compliments but wants to give a ‘shout out to the Saudis’.
As he prepares to face Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena on Saturday to crown boxing’s first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in 1999, the British fighter hails Saudi Arabia’s role in trying to revive a sport whose halcyon days have long since passed.
The Gulf kingdom is “the leading country in the world right now” for boxing, Fury tells the Financial Times. “It used to be Las Vegas, but now it’s Saudi Arabia for sure. They’re the biggest players in the game, and I don’t think we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming,” Fury said. “They’ve got a massive, massive vision for this sport.”
It is one underpinned by the ever larger sums that the Saudi government has been prepared to throw at the sport since the country first hosted a major contest in 2018. A boxer will typically earn at least double when fighting in Saudi Arabia than anywhere else and the combined prize money for the nine bouts on Saturday is over $100mn.
For critics, this largesse is yet another example of Saudi Arabia using sports, including football, golf and tennis, to burnish its image and distract from its human rights record, or “sportwashing”.
Those within boxing instead point to the critical role Riyadh has assumed in helping it compete with other combat sports, such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship, that have seen their popularity and commercial value soar, thanks in part to centralised decision making.
That it has taken so long to put the top heavyweights in the same ring is a symptom of the fragmented structure that has dogged the sport. With an alphabet soup of federations and rival promoters competing for influence and money, boxing has often served up fights that fail to deliver the spectacle fans crave.
Todd duBoef, president of Fury’s US promoter Top Rank, said it was important for boxing to capitalise on such headline-grabbing matches, but that fans wanted to see more of them. “You have to give people those big moments. You can’t have 25 years without a World Cup.”
Fury and Usyk have both already fought in Saudi Arabia, but efforts to promote Saturday’s contest have scaled new heights, as billboards emblazoned with “The Historic Fight” in red letters are dotted across the country’s biggest cities.
The fight is part of Riyadh Season, an annual months-long event organised by the government’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA).
Turki al-Alsheikh, a royal court adviser and the driving force behind the GEA, has been tasked with unlocking the sports and entertainment sectors as part of an ambitious programme for economic diversification and social liberalisation led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since 2016. The kingdom’s rulers hope that hosting major events will encourage Saudis to spend more of their income at home and bolster efforts to turn the kingdom into a global tourist destination.
The country’s boxing federation was only founded in 1980, and the sport remains a relatively niche one in Saudi Arabia. According to the federation, the number of boxers in the country more than tripled to 2,000 between 2021 and 2023.
Alsheikh, a former police officer, is a self-professed boxing fan who says he wants to use the same strategies that have helped transform UFC and Formula One into multibillion-dollar enterprises. That includes backing for a new boxing video game, a television series and a documentary about the sport’s greatest fighters.
As Saudi Arabia carves out a bigger role in the sport, Peter Frankental, a director at Amnesty International, the human rights group, says the country should be challenged on how it is using sports.
“Glitzy events like Fury vs Usyk are designed to rebrand Saudi Arabia as a ‘sporting hub’ while deflecting attention from the country’s jailing of women’s rights activists, suppression of free speech and rampant use of the death penalty,” he said.
Officials reject such accusations, saying the money poured into sport has been positive for economic growth.
Boxing is not the only winner from Saudi cheques. The kingdom has lavished billions of dollars on sport in recent years, from golf and football to tennis and motor racing. The country is on track to host the men’s football World Cup in 2034 after emerging as the sole bidder, and has even mooted a potential bid for the Olympic Games one day.
But in boxing, Saudi officials have found a target in which money talks even more loudly than in most sports.
On June 1, five boxers from Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions will take on five from rival promoter Matchroom Boxing, in another big Riyadh Season event. The two UK-based stables have been fierce competitors since the 1980s but have been brought together by Alsheikh.
Eddie Hearn, chair of Matchroom and one of boxing’s top promoters, does not try to hide the pivotal role that Saudi riches have played.
“Everyone’s keen to work with him [Alsheikh] because he’s obviously got the money to make these fights happen,” said Hearn. “He’s broken down the barriers. He’s opened the doors to people working together more, which can only be good for the sport.”
By centralising the rights, Saudi organisers have also been able to strike global media deals. Sports streamer DAZN, which is producing Saturday’s live broadcast, will offer the match on pay-per-view in 200 territories.
“One of the things the sport has suffered from has been a fragmentation,” said Pete Oliver, CEO of growth markets at DAZN. “They are solving that problem and that is creating a much better product and a much better experience for fans.”
Although Saudi Arabia’s riches has helped deliver the biggest heavyweight bout of the century, some of the sport’s problems will still be evident on Saturday night.
The winner’s reign as undisputed champion will be brief. Each federation has different rules governing which fighter is next in line to challenge for their respective belt. Soon after Saturday’s match, the winner is set to be stripped of one the belts so that a mandatory challenger can compete for it, underlining the still messy structure boxing fans have to confront.
At the same time, the multiple promoters involved have struck deals with competing broadcasters, splitting both the audience and the revenue. In the UK, for example, the fight will be screened on pay-per-view on DAZN, Sky Sports and TNT Sports.
Some within the sport also quietly harbour doubts about whether a fight in alcohol-free Saudi Arabia can generate the same global “buzz” as one held in front of a raucous, sellout crowd in London or Las Vegas.
Fury’s bout against Dillon Whyte attracted a record 94,000 spectators to London’s Wembley Stadium in 2022; just 26,000 attended his more recent fight in Riyadh.
But Fury, in line for a payday that is expected to run to tens of millions of dollars, insists the location makes no difference.
“I could be boxing on Mars when I’m in there,” he said. “People want to see the best fight the best, they want to see massive events, and that’s what they’re getting in Saudi Arabia.”
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