Frank Warren, promoter for WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, has told William Hill’s podcast, Up Front with Simon Jordan, that his boxer's crossover bout with former UFC champion Francis Ngannou on October 28, in Saudi Arabia, is the biggest event he has been involved with. 

Fury has been out of the ring since December of 2022, when he battered and stopped Derek Chisora in their trilogy fight.

Warren is expecting Fury's fight with Ngannou to be a blockbuster.

“This is the biggest event I have ever been involved with,” Warren explained to William Hill. “You’ve got the lineal champion and the number-one heavyweight in the UFC. The guy from the UFC has decided he wants to fight; I haven’t got a problem with that. It’s a massive, massive, massive event; the biggest event out there that will break box office records.” 

In the last few years, Saudi Arabia has been spending mountains of money to secure the biggest fights possible.

Warren could see Saudi Arabia eventually becoming a big rival to Las Vegas when it comes to securing high-profile pay-per-view events.

“One of the problems we had with fighters before pay-per-view is they would have to go to Las Vegas. Do you know why? Because they get a site fee from a casino before you start," Warren said.

“When I launched a pay-per-view fight with Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno – the first show on Sky – that was a game-changer because then we could start doing loads of shows over here with Showtime, a place where we launched a lot of fighters' careers.  

“With Saudi, this is a slightly similar situation. Where we are now, we are doing an event out there, and we are opening up the Riyadh Festival, which is huge. 

“Saudi Arabia has all this criticism about it, but they are out there saying ‘This is our country’. Is it any different than when Roman Abramovich came to Chelsea or when the same thing happened to Manchester City?”