The seemingly endless run of stacked cards taking place in Saudi Arabia has given, and is giving, fight fans plenty to get excited about. A real “game-changer,” as promoter Frank Warren said back when the first mega-card was announced last year, the Saudis entering into the sport has proven to be one enormous boost for boxing.
And it could be that the June 1 card that is currently being finalized for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will be both the biggest and the best yet. As fans have heard, two heavyweight showdowns are being finalized for the June 1 card – these between Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang, and Filip Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois. While the main event might just rank as one of the most important and eagerly anticipated light heavyweight fights of many years, this of course being the four-belt unification clash between unbeaten champions Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
This 175 pound showdown would, in an ordinary world, be a stand alone fight, with no stellar supporting bill of fights at all necessary. But the Saudi money men, fronted by Turki Alalshikh, have unlimited funds, and it just so happens that they want to put on stacked cards, not a case of them having to do so. And the winners have been us fans, and the fighters of course, their paydays being substantial, their exposure also.
And the really great thing is the fact that the pay-per-view price for these stacked cards has not risen, even though it could have. We have in short been given enormous value for money with the “Day of Reckoning” card, with the “Knockout Chaos” card, and we will get massive value for money again with the as yet untitled June 1 card.
Beterbiev Vs. Bivol is a sensational match up, a simply unmissable fight. While Wilder Vs. Zhang and Hrgovic Vs. Dubois are two quite mouthwatering heavyweight fights we fans can look forward to getting our teeth into. And there could be more, with additional fights added to the card. Not that these three big fights, each (almost) set for June 1, is not enough. It is, and fans will not want to miss out with this upcoming card. And ahead of the June 1 extravaganza, we will have the long-awaited Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight unification collision. And there will no doubt be some excellent supporting bouts featured on May 18 in Riyadh.
Really, the interjection from the Saudis has been nothing but a great thing, with numerous ‘hard-to-make,’ even ‘unrealistic’ fights becoming nothing of the sort. Money talks, and genuine boxing fans with gargantuan amounts of money make great fight cards. Not since the legendary days of Don King’s stacked cards have we fight fans had it so good!
That June 1 card really is shaping up as something else. Who can pick a winner from Bivol-Beterbiev? Who wins out of Hrgovic and Dubois? And can Zhang-Wilder possibly be anything but an explosion that ends with a violent KO?
Each card in Saudi has arguably topped the other, but the June 1 card really will take some topping.