THE travelling circus that is top flight boxing descended yet again on Riyadh last week for the latest instalment in Saudi Arabia’s attempt to take its place on the world stage as a major player when it comes to hosting huge sporting events. We can, however, reasonably assume that the occupants of the torture rooms located in the country’s maximum security Al-haer prison, just south of the capital, were otherwise distracted with the agonising pain to which they were being subjected at the time to care overmuch.
Regardless, everybody else last Friday was treated to another evening of heavyweight action in a near atmosphere-free arena. Part of the kingdom’s now annual Riyadh Season of sporting events, into town rolled combatants Anthony Johsua and Francis Ngannou, Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang, along with a veritable parade of past, current and hopeful future champions, drawn to Riyadh less by the event than by the gold with which the Saudis stuffed their mouths.
Parker v Zhang was the fight of the night, pitching a resurgent New Zealander against the giant and hard-hitting Chinaman. Parker had to put in a shift over twelve hard rounds, during which he was dropped to the canvas twice. No matter, in the second half of the fight he came on strong to dominate the much larger man, who showed definite signs of too many miles on the clock. The end result was a majority decision and the capture of Zhang’s WBO title.
Joseph Parker represents a strange anomaly within a professional boxing culture wherein bluster and bombast has descended to somewhere between the kerb and the gutter. Not from him the torrent of foul-mouthed braggadocio and abuse that has become the norm from the Versace and Gucci-clad denizens who now colonise the sport. Here instead is a quiet gentleman who prefers, as the well worn cliche has it, to do his own fighting in the ring.
Under the tutelage of another gentleman of the game — coach and former world champion himself, Andy Lee — Parker has been reborn to the point of now starting to fulfil the potential he was labelled with when he first came on the international scene from his native New Zealand back in 2017. Since losing by KO to England’s Joe Joyce in 2022, he has now fought five times in an undefeated run that is as impressive as his level of activity. Basing himself in Morecambe, Lancashire at Tyson Fury’s gym, the 32-year-old is living proof that in boxing, as in life, redemption is a sweet thing indeed.
The main event in Riyadh pitched the enigma that is Anthony Joshua against a literal man mountain in the personage of Camaroon’s Francis Ngannou, who in his first ever foray into the squared circle last October against the above-mentioned Fury, did enough to win in the eyes of many.
That fight also took place in Riyadh and back again he came to prove to a boxing fraternity which views the MMA octagon, where Ngannou made his bones, as tantamount to the child of a lesser god. The key question where he was concerned was if his success against Tyson Fury in October was the product of luck, Fury taking him too lightly, or his preternatural boxing skills and ability.
For Britain’s AJ, fighting Ngannou was the very definition of a lose-lose proposition. As a veteran top-flight heavyweight and former Olympic champion, losing to a rank novice carried with it the guarantee of severe reputational harm. It was therefore to the giant Londoner’s credit that he’d opted to take on this particular challenge, having previously despatched Otto Wallin in the kingdom at the same event last October where Fury almost came unstuck against the big Cameroonian.
This was AJ’s second outing under coach Ben Davison and it proved his best. He didn’t just defeat Ngannou, he rolled over him with ease. Two rounds is all it took before, having already dropped his opponent twice, AJ instantly put him to sleep with a thunderous right hand.
Having gone through a prolonged period of fighting like a man cowering behind his own couch, Anthony Joshua is once again riding high. The link-up with Davison has paid off when it comes to getting his fighting mojo back, and once again the boxing public is tantalised at the prospect of a high noon showdown between Joshua and arch rival Tyson Fury for the keys to the boxing kingdom.
This being said, Francis Ngannou learned the painful lesson that you can’t just take up boxing and start at the top level. It wasn’t only that Joshua came at him like man on a mission, it was also that the Cameroonian is a rank novice in a game in which to be such and step out of line is to invite your own demise. MMA and boxing are two entirely different sports. The punch mechanics, feet placement, and hand positioning belong on different planets. With this in mind, surely now it is time for these crossover fights to end before somebody gets seriously hurt.
Of the many former champions drawn over to Riyadh for the event, Mike Tyson stirred the controversy pot with the announcement that he’d agreed to face the by now tiresome YouTuber Jake Paul later this year in Dallas, Texas.
Tyson has reinvented himself from the Iron Mike human wrecking ball of old into an ambassador for the supposed virtues of cannabis. However this writer detected no intoxication in his eyes or in his voice when discussing his future clash with a much younger man in Paul, who is now so delusional he needs urgent help.
Money talks, of course it does, but when it comes to the supposed noble art ruination beckons on its current trajectory of unbridled greed and opportunism. You can only shear a sheep so much until it starts to bleed. And when it comes to the sport of boxing, this point has never been closer to being reached with respect to fleecing the fans.
