Friday, May 17

 

The Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk fight-week bubble finally started to expand on the day that the two challengers for the undisputed heavyweight title weighed in.

 

BoxingScene had been invited to attend earlier on Friday the so-called “launch” of the video game Undisputed, which appears to have been postponed considerably more times than Fury-Usyk, and is almost as difficult to avoid on social media as sponsored posts from Turki Alalshikh.

 

There was also an invitation to attend a Fight Week Auction, hosted by Sotheby’s, where it was possible to bid for a watch (the invitation repeatedly and pretentiously described it as a “timepiece”) as tacky as so much of what appears to be modern-day Riyadh. It is difficult not to admire the manufacturer’s optimism, given Riyadh’s the city where time doesn’t appear to pass.

 

Larry Holmes and Wladimir Klitschko – the latter particularly hearteningly, given so much of his retirement has been dedicated to helping Ukraine’s war effort against Russia – could be seen at Friday’s weigh-in, at the same location of BLVD City where Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield had appeared the previous day.

 

David Haye, another former world heavyweight champion, is also in Riyadh and has been around some of the fight build-up. The only one consistently absent is Anthony Joshua, who BoxingScene understands has been local for the longest period and yet is hardly anywhere to be seen.

 

That he is on course to fight the winner of the two-fight series between Fury and Usyk – and may not necessarily need to wait for a rematch – makes it particularly strange he hasn’t been interested in speaking to the media in an attempt to enhance his profile and further his interests. Joshua, regardless, has undoubtedly had a fine career and earned millions doing things his way.

 

When Fury and Usyk weighed in, Usyk’s weight was erroneously announced as 10lbs heavier than the 223.5lbs that was the reality. He remains a career heaviest, but not to the extent that there is considerable cause to believe that he doesn’t still intend on using his superior mobility and speed to record a career-defining win.