‘If Saudi can bring boxing, anyone can’

It will be easy to bring a world title fight to the UAE now that Saudi Arabia has done it, according to Saudi super-lightweight Zuhayr Al Qahtani. The 29-year-old is the only Saudi fighter on the undercard of today’s World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) super-middleweight final between George Groves and Callum Smith at Jeddah’s Sports City.

The London-based engineering graduate, who left Jeddah for the UK aged 12 and first stepped into a gym at 15, will also be the first Saudi to fight on home soil when he faces an as yet unknown opponent after Georgia’s Giorgi Gviniashvili pulled out.

“Saudi has done something amazing, it’s beaten the rest of the GCC to hosting a big fight and if it can happen here it will be a piece of cake to do it in Dubai or Abu Dhabi,” he said of attracting high level contests to the UAE, something that’s yet to have been done in the emirates. There’s a much higher percentage of locals to expats in Saudi than in the UAE, 35 million people, so to do it in Saudi is bigger than anywhere else in the Middle East, they’ve set the margin now and anywhere else will be easy.”

Asked if the sport will stick, he replied: “Absolutely, Jeddah should constantly host these kinds of fights, as it has amazing stadiums, and the annual WBSS is a great concept to introduce the sport to new followers.”