Promoter Frank Warren’s wish for more fight cards in the newest boxing capital of the world is apparently moving steadily along.
The Queensberry Promotions head announced on a UK radio show this week that his company will be helming a show on Dec. 23 in Saudi Arabia. Warren did not reveal who would be headlining the card.
The news comes amid the ballyhooed heavyweight “crossover” fight between Francis Ngannou and Queensberry client Tyson Fury, the WBC heavyweight champion, last month in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Fury is co-promoted in the United States by Las Vegas-based Top Rank.
“There’s gonna be a big night in December, and we’ll be announcing very soon. It will be massive. …You’re gonna love it,” Warren told talkSPORT. “I promise you, you’re gonna love it. I can’t give you all the information at the moment, but everything’s going in the right direction for it to be a historical night in boxing.”
Fury’s controversial win over Ngannou, who made his boxing debut in that fight, now sets up the undisputed championship with unified champion Oleksandr Usyk, also in Riyadh and backed by the same state organizers.
That fight was widely reported to take place on Dec. 23, but after Fury’s tougher-than-expected fight with Ngannou, which featured a shocking knockdown of Fury in the third round, Fury and his backers have requested more time. Some reports have suggested the fight will now take place in February; a formal press conference is imminent.
“That fight is signed,” Warren said. “It was originally expected to take place on the 23rd of December. It’s been pushed back and it will take place in the early part of the year. That fight will happen. …it’s the first time a unification fight has taken place in this century and it’s one of the quickest unifications ever put together.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.