OBSERVATIONS FROM “THE GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER” || FIGHTHYPE.COM

Well, wow…I just somehow managed to regain my composure after sitting through the GREATEST BOXING CARD in the history of all humanity– and I know it was the GREATEST BOXING CARD in the history of all humanity because the DAZN broadcast crew and all of the paid and unpaid Saudi boxing operatives in the media kept telling us that it was.

In reality, Saudi Arabia’s “The Last Crescendo” was a good card with seven noteworthy fights and an eye-rolling “this is the best card ever” propaganda push that kind of took away from people accepting it as a good card. Note to Saudi figurehead Turki Alalshikh: Not everything you do has to be shoved into our faces as “The best thing ever.”

All the excessive shilling for the Saudi boxing takeover is not surprising. Most of the media swine will sell out for a nice media buffet. It’s not shocking at all to see some of these guys shed their tattered vestments of journalistic integrity for the billion-bucks Saudis like they were frantically tearing off a flaming leisure suit. 

It is a little disappointing to see that behavior, however, in a couple of the media people I’ve come to like and respect over the years. If we’ve lost the few good ones left, we’ve lost all hope for boxing media as a whole. Oh well…

Needless to say, from this dark pit of the boxing underground, I, personally, still refuse to normalize, legitimize, or help to normalize and legitimize this takeover that will, ultimately, cripple boxing and adversely affect everything from fighter safety to the in-ring quality of the sport. 

But my job IS to report on boxing. I kinda-sorta have to watch this stuff and talk about it. So, here are my notes from this GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER:

– If I were to point to one moment in time that capsulizes my distrust of this entire Saudi push, it’s the 48-hour period between Martin Bakole being named as the replacement opponent for Joseph Parker and a fat-bellied, out of shape Bakole being knocked out in two rounds.

It’s grotesque that Bakole, who was back at home in the Congo on Thursday when he signed on to face Parker, missed the event’s day-before weigh-in because he was still on his 9+ hour flight to get to Riyadh. No training camp. No real medical tests. No real PED testing. No time to even ditch the jet lag.

Forget the after-the-fact storytelling about how Bakole really was training or even the tall tale of a 310 lb. “official” weight. The floppy gut and man-titties told the story of a guy who, literally, was at home, chilling with snacks on a Thursday afternoon, then jetted over to Saudi Arabia to face a world class heavyweight on Saturday. 

Bakole, as heavy-handed and warrior-minded as he is, never had a chance. Things could’ve been a lot worse than the clumsy fall he took after being banged on the top of the head.

And all of this is, precisely, the problem in dealing with people who are beyond any jurisdiction and who offer no transparency, have no accountability, and throw around money to turn their whims into reality. 

There are supposed to be some adults in the room to protect fighters from their own fighting instincts and from their management’s instincts to exploit them for a payday.

What happened Saturday was a real disservice to Bakole in so many ways. This was 100% about protecting the event over the fighter. It should serve as a brief open window into the soul of Turki Alalshikh and the Saudi boxing initiative.

Where was the commission? Is there even a commission at all?

And, also, shame on the boxing media for not talking about how shitty this whole setup was. Instead, they talked up the “ain’t he brave” narrative, while all the while knowing how irresponsible and dangerous this scenario was. 

– Another brief open window into the boxing soul of Turki and Saudi boxing came during the Carlos Adames-Hamzah Sheeraz WBC middleweight title fight.

In the latter stages of the bout, a concerned and angry-perturbed Turki would be captured walking over to the Sheeraz corner and informing the fighter’s team, several times, that Sheeraz was down by two rounds, while encouraging the fighter to be more aggressive.

Now, the question is whether Turki accessed the official scorecards for that info or if he was relying on the silly Ring Magazine AI judge’s tally or, maybe, even Chris Mannix’s DAZN scorecard. It doesn’t really matter, although getting his hands on the official scorecards to see who’s winning would be especially unethical. 

What really matters is that the Turki-favored Sheeraz, who was named a Riyadh Season ambassador and would’ve been the Saudis’ first Riyadh Season-“created” Muslim world champ, was clearly given favorite son treatment by the event organizer, and aggressively so. 

BTW, Adames would have to settle for a draw in this bout he clearly won. 

– In the GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER’s main event, Dmitry Bivol avenged his points loss to Artur Beterbiev to capture all four recognized world light heavyweight titles.

Bivol-Beterbiev 2 was a better fight than the first, mostly because one of the fighters (Bivol) actually made adjustments and showed an ability to adapt. The Bivol win means we’re going to see a Part 3, probably in October’s Riyadh Season show.

– Meanwhile, David Benavidez, who was flown out by Turki to be at ringside to possibly set up a shot at the winner of Bivol-Beterbiev, will have to keep waiting. His big shot at unified champ status has so far eluded him in two different weight classes.

– WBC lightweight champ Shakur Stevenson was supposed to deliver a showcase performance against late replacement Josh Padley. Instead, the story of the fight became Padley’s toughness as he lasted nearly nine full rounds against the infinitely more talented Stevenson, without the benefit of a training camp or much time to prepare.

I’m sure the money is good for Shakur, but if the goal was to boost his profile by signing with Matchroom Boxing, the strategy has not paid off at all. Playing to an indifferent crowd on the other side of the planet, buried on an undercard  (albeit on the GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER), is no way to grow his star. With no big fights on the horizon and an iffy chance of the William Zepeda fight happening, this deal with Eddie Hearn (and Turki) looks to be nothing more than a career pause and a few empty paydays.

– In an interesting side note, Turki had to move this GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER to a smaller venue, per Boxingscene (in a story that was later deleted), to “promote better atmosphere.” The show was switched from the 26,000-capacity Kingdom Arena to the smaller Venue Riyadh, which holds 8,000 people. And, per Turki interview during the “Last Crescendo” telecast, 7,000 people were in attendance, which means they didn’t even sell out the smaller venue.

Did the boxing world not know that this was the GREATEST BOXING CARD EVER?

– There was other stuff that happened during the show in other fights, but you can find fight results at FightNews. I have neither the time nor the inclination to pour over the show, beyond the low-lights.

– People have been accusing me of being biased against Turki and the Saudis and all I can say to that is– hell yeah I’m biased. I’m biased to this in the way I’m biased against the Klan or in the way I’m biased against drinking bleach. And, no, of course I won’t “just give them a chance.”

Why would I not be biased when I absolutely know that sending boxing to the Middle East, at the expense of the US and UK fight scenes, will hurt the sport in so many ways? Why would I not be biased when it’s so overwhelmingly evident that ceding control to a murderous monarchy– outside of any jurisdiction and any degree of accountability– is a very, very bad idea? 

If you still don’t believe me about where this is all headed, we got a small glimpse of it on Saturday with some free-and-loose play with fighter safety and some not-so-subtle rule-bending favoritism. Expect more and worse to come. 

As for the media…

What can I say? You guys really and truly don’t give a flying fuck about anything other than your own grift. Sometimes I think to myself that maybe I’m too hard on the media, but then something always comes along to remind me that I’m not hard enough on them. 

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