Outrage as Saudi Arabia emerges as favourite to host Joshua-fury
Hurdle victory on Honeysuckle is first by a woman hmccoy says rider can become first female champion jockey
Saudi Arabia is expected to make an offer of up to £150million to host the fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
The pair could also share about £95million in pay-per-view fees in a potential split with four major broadcasters as part of the biggest deal in British boxing history.
Saudi Arabia’s main challengers are Shanghai and Singapore as promoters race to find a site after twofight contracts to unify the world heavyweight titles were signed.
Logistical headaches of hiring a 90,000-capacity venue and selling tickets during the pandemic have all but ended hopes of the first fight taking place in London or Las Vegas.
An offer from Saudi Arabia is already the front-runner, with analysts predicting a deal at least double the £70million fee it paid for Joshua’s rematch against Andy Ruiz Jnr.
The potential choice of Saudi Arabia has worried human rights campaigners, who claim abuses extend beyond the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It will come as no surprise to see Saudi authorities once again using a major sporting event as a means to sportswash its atrocious human rights record.”
As far as the promoters are concerned, Saudi Arabia – where Covid19 rates are comparatively low – is the fastest and easiest place to getting the fight done. The state’s leaders are keen to enhance their status on the global stage.
An offer of up to £150million from Saudi for a fight in June or July would be just the start for the two British heavyweights. The contract would have the fighters getting a 50-50 split in the first bout and a 60-40 split in the rematch in favour of the winner of the original contest.
While 90,000-plus fans at Wembley would be an obvious choice for the rematch, the unpredictable weather in October might prompt the promoters to consider Cardiff and its retractable roof. Los Angeles or Las Vegas will also be considered.
Four broadcasters – ESPN, DAZN, BT Sport Box Office and Sky Sports Box Office – are likely to share coverage on pay-per-view.
Fury, 32, is the World Boxing Council champion while Joshua, 31, holds the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Organisation and International Boxing Federation titles. Both parties say the location must be agreed upon within 30 days or the deal is off.
IBickering, bartering, belittling. The duo are set to be at the centre of everything, scoring cheap points
f Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn were kids in a schoolyard you would grab them by the collars and bang their heads together. But then, just as you were about to solve their tiresome squabbles the old-fashioned way, they would probably bring in their legal teams, argue for a few months about who stands on the left and on the right and then telecast it live in morning assembly at £29.95 a pop.
You might think the build-up to the biggest British boxing fight ever (which is also the biggest British sporting occasion ever, and the biggest event in the world ever, including in the Milky Way and the surrounding galaxies) would revolve around the pair who will actually be trading blows: Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
If only. First we have been forced to witness the sickening involvement of Daniel Kinahan, the Dubliner who has no criminal record but who Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau told its High Court in 2018, “managed and controlled” the drug-trafficking operations of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
Without Kinahan, the ever-sograteful boxing world demands us to acknowledge that the respective management teams of Joshua and Furyk would never have been brought to the table. But he did and it has hardly been seamless agreement since. This should not be about Warren and Hearn, but it is and will remain so until that first bell rings in the country of whichever barbaric regime coughs up most generously. There will follow the rematch and the whole tawdry script will play out again.
Hearn and Warren will get another chance to bitch about each other, in the courageous manner of those gangs behind the bike sheds. The petty one-upmanship is already in full swing. “It’s their fault, not ours...” “They started it...” “We were here first...”
Except nobody is bothering to control this puerility. The opposite is true. These two astute businessmen are being encouraged to provide “content” for a bout that is supposedly official, but remains without date or venue.
Yesterday was a classic. Warren went on Talksport and slated Hearn for announcing on Monday that a deal had been signed. “We’re not happy,” Warren said. “Everybody signed an agreement that there would be no announcements unless they were joint announcements.”
If you listened very carefully in the background, you could hear Eddie cackle. My goodness, they cannot even agree on the announcement of the signed deal. “But everybody is on the same page to make this work,” Warren assured us. Apart from the same first page.
And so it will go on and on. Bickering, bartering, belittling. The duo are set to be at the centre of everything, dripping their poison and scoring cheap points. And that everything might well involve who will actually be at the centre in the photo shoots. You know, which promoter gets to stand between the fighters as they go nose-to-nose for that gladiatorial picture at the weigh-in.
Why do they do that? You do not see the chairman of the All England Club wedged between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal before the Wimbledon final. Lord Coe does not have a quick steel-faced selfie among the 100metres runners on the line at the World Athletics Championships. Sepp Blatter did not even insist on pushing the referee out of the way to be in the middle when the two captains shook hands before the first whistle in the World Cup final. So why in boxing?
Hilariously, one insider said if tempers boil over, the promoter is there to keep them apart. Imagine! If 69-year-old Frank or Armaniclad Eddie can break up the two fighters then it does not promise to be much of a fight, does it?
No, the reason they do it is ego, self-promotion, to feel big, tough and part of it. They unashamedly pose with straight faces staring down the lens, between two humans who will spill blood for their profit. Quite sick, actually.
Harmless? Perhaps. Although the levels of celebrity and praise these megalomaniacs receive might be why certain individuals are attracted into boxing in an attempt to improve their reputations.
hchampion
Sir Anthony Mccoy predicted Rachael Blackmore could one day follow in his footsteps and be crowned champion jockey after she made history on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival by becoming the first female rider to win the Champion Hurdle.
Two years after Bryony Frost became the first female jockey to win a Grade One race, Blackmore broke new ground for women in racing by partnering 11-10 favourite Honeysuckle to victory in Britain’s biggest hurdle race.
Mccoy, who was champion jockey 20 times during his illustrious career, said: “I thought it would be really hard for a girl to be champion jockey, but she could very easily be. She’s as good as any girl I’ve seen on a horse. She’s got it all. She’s delivered on the biggest stage.”
Having travelled well throughout the race, Honeysuckle blitzed past her rivals when Blackmore asked her to quicken entering the home straight to beat Sharjah by 6½ lengths.
It was the second Cheltenham Festival win for Blackmore and the Henry de Bromhead-trained mare after they combined for victory in last year’s Mares’ Hurdle. Honey
FESTIVAL 2021
suckle has now won all 11 races she has contested over obstacles, becoming the third mare to win the Champion Hurdle in the past six years. “Absolutely incredible,” said Blackmore.
“This is such a special race and I am just so thankful to be a part of it – it’s all about her. Her last run was her career-best until today; she’s getting better all the time.”
With no family connection to racing, Blackmore, the daughter of a Tipperary farmer, had her interest in the sport sparked as a child when she went on a school trip to
Ballydoyle, where the star attraction was three-time Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq.
“This was never even a dream,” she said. “To be at Cheltenham riding the winner of the Champion Hurdle is so far removed from anything I thought possible.”
De Bromhead said: “Rachael was amazing, I thought she was so cool throughout the race. She is as good as any of them – male, female, she is as good as any of the guys. I’m ecstatic with the result but I’m delighted for them [Blackmore and Honeysuckle].”
Sporting John is the only runner in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase (1.55) who has yet to tackle three miles, and that step up in trip might just unlock sufficient improvement.