SAUDIS WANT FURY FIGHT
Prince calls for Tyson rumble in Riyadh
TYSON FURY could be heading to Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom confirmed they want to stage the historic clash for the undisputed world heavyweight title.
The Saudis paid £66million to bring last night’s rematch between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk to their country and now they want the big one.
Sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud says they would like to stage WBC champ Fury in a fight for all four major belts.
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Derek Chisora, and Prince Abdulaziz (right) says a fight for the undisputed title is exactly the sort of global event the Saudis want to host.
“Why not?” he said. “We are open to that. We’re bidding for a lot of competitions.
“We want the 2034 Asian Games, which is like the Olympics for Asia. We’ve never hosted it before.
“We’re bidding for the 2027 Asian Cup in football. We’ve won it three times, but we’ve never hosted it.
“We’re open to a lot of these events.”
Last night’s rematch took place in the 12,000-seater King Abdullah Sports City Arena and
Prince Abdulaziz says that, ideally, they would like the undisputed clash to be outdoors in Riyadh this winter.
“In the winter time, if it does happen, I think it will be hosted in Riyadh,” he said. “I think so, but we still haven’t decided on anything.
“We’re interested, that’s all I can say.”
The Saudis say they want to host big events to inspire their people to take up different sports and to boost their fledgling tourist industry.
Prince Abdulaziz claims the £66m outlay on Joshua’s rematch with Usyk was worth it because it caught the imagination of locals in Jeddah. “There’s a big buzz in the city and the worst thing about these events is that, the day before, everyone starts calling you for tickets,” he said with a smile.
“Suddenly, they all want to come.
“I’d prefer it to happen at a better time because of the weather and that we could have held it in an open space, but we can use this beautiful facility we have here.
“There’s a lot of interest, especially after the first fight we had here with Joshua and with this one and, hopefully, in the future if we have an even bigger fight. We saw a lot of interest from the UK, people wanting to come in and watch the fight, so there is a lot of buzz.”
Prince Abdulaziz dismissed accusations the Saudis are engaged in sports washing by hosting events like last night’s and insisted they are sincere about encouraging the growth of sport.
He pointed to the increase in boxing since Joshua’s rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr in 2019 as proof that these showpiece occasions do inspire their people.
“A lot has been going on in
the Kingdom, specifically with boxing,” he said. “We’ve seen through the numbers from the last fight we had, Joshua-Ruiz 2, that we had six gyms in Saudi that had boxing in them.
“Boxing isn’t a big sport in Saudi – not like the UK or other countries in the West – and today we have 57 gyms that have boxing in them, do their competitions, training and so on.
“So there is an increase of 300 per cent in a sport which was not known to Saudis. That’s the benefit we get from all these programmes to develop sport in the community.”
Prince Abdulaziz also claimed the Saudis hope to benefit from neighbours Qatar staging the first World Cup in the Middle East this winter.
He rejected claims that the Saudis are trying to play catch-up with their smaller neighbours on the Arabian peninsula by throwing money at so many sporting events.
“Not at all,” he said. “We’re supporting Qatar a lot because we really think it’s a benefit for us. By hosting the World Cup in our region, some people can travel.
“They can drive their car and go to Qatar to watch the World Cup. It’s a benefit for everyone.
“I don’t see it as a competition between one nation and another one.”