ON the DAZN broadcast for Usyk-Fury II, presenter Kate Scott coolly remarked that Saudi Arabia is the new home of boxing.
Yet crucially this doesn’t relate to physical attendance and a passionate crowd. You can’t buy an atmosphere and, even the staunchest advocate for Saudi Arabia’s role in boxing, would have to admit the sport does not have its roots embedded in the Middle Eastern nation’s culture and tradition.
The participation of a crowd is an essential ingredient of any major sporting event. We relish the crackle of anticipation and spontaneous roar that sweeps through an arena or stadium with a shift of momentum and spike in drama. This pure, undiluted passion cannot be manufactured. Sport thrives on a fully invested audience – be it in boxing, football, darts, rugby, any competition laced with rivalry, fortune and intrigue.
When Johnny Fisher and Dave Allen engaged in an unexpected barnburner on the Usyk-Fury II undercard, one imagined how this would have played out at York Hall or the Copper Box with a committed and rapt audience, packing the venue to the rafters.
That fight felt wasted in Saudi. Perhaps the necessary rematch can shift to Essex or East London with the full ‘Bosh Army’ in attendance. Allen, who confounded pre-fight expectation, certainly deserves another chance after his spirited and unrewarded display.
Saudi’s investment in boxing has overall been a good thing, breaching political divides and making the important fights that have so long eluded us. But the next stage will perhaps prove more challenging because boxing hotbeds like the UK and Vegas risk becoming fallow ground with major events dwindling in these key locations and drawn, moth-like, to the money but minor crowds in the Middle East.
Taking boxing away from its historical heartlands and an enthusiastic, more knowledgeable, fan base pushes it closer to becoming among the nichest of niche sports. With streamed events on Netflix perhaps the only realistic way to catch a wider, younger, casual audience now distracted in so many directions.
Anthony Joshua’s stirring win over Wladimir Klitschko, with the pendulum swinging one way and then the next, was fired by a captivated, pro-Joshua crowd of 90,000 at Wembley Stadium. Tucked away in a sanitised arena in Saudi Arabia, that event wouldn’t be the same animal, nowhere close.
The atmosphere for Benn-Eubank I at the NEC, Birmingham, would have charged iPhones in this era. You could cut the tension with any utensil. The NEC was a raucous cauldron of noise and raw emotion rippled through the seats as those great rivals knocked seven bells out of one another. I’ve still not felt goosebumps like that attending any boxing match and the excited chatter among the fans departing the venue was that they’d just witnessed the UK’s version of Hagler-Hearns.
Imagine Hagler-Hearns being played out in front of semi-interested, selfie-taking Saudi VIPs in the Middle East? Corrales-Castillo I, any Matthew Saad Muhammad or Ricky Hatton fight? Unplugging the atmosphere and the sheer thrill in the arena presents a different spectacle and sport altogether. The energy of the fans connects and powers the event.
Watching my team Tottenham win the UEFA Cup in our own stadium back in 1984 remains an otherworldly, childhood memory. Outplayed by a better Anderlecht side on the night, the crowd proved to be the 12th man. After Danny Thomas missed his spot-kick in the shoot-out, the home crowd sung his name in unison – a truly spinetingling moment (almost unimaginable today) and when rookie keeper Tony Parks saved the climatic penalty to claim the cup the stadium shook to its foundations. The euphoria of being there that night has never left me. Imagine a major cup final in a Saudi stadium?
An impassioned crowd is just as crucial to boxing, and stadium and arena fights filled with partisan supporters should not be allowed to dwindle and condemned to extinction in the pursuit of more easy, immediate riches.
September’s successful Riyadh Season event at Wembley illustrated that an appetite for major stadium boxing still remains here and hopefully that Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua mega-fight, that has so long evaded us, will take place on British soil in 2025 to be enjoyed and enlivened by those who want add magic and meaning to the occasion.
Boxing must take its opportunities but cannot afford to be cut off at its roots.
