![Bob Arum/Saudi Arabia is the ‘new Las Vegas’ for heavyweight boxing](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/boxing/2023/12/16/TELEMMGLPICT000185945695_17027645308380_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqU5YWHajv4hbPp_AG8e9kMN9TfLQ0ChWA23VP1SzfJos.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Bob Arum interview: Saudi Arabia is the ‘new Las Vegas’ for heavyweight boxing
Exclusive: Legendary promoter says the Kingdom becoming a home for the marquee division is great with fighters no longer avoiding each other
![Bob Arum/Saudi Arabia is the ‘new Las Vegas’ for heavyweight boxing](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/boxing/2023/12/16/TELEMMGLPICT000185945695_17027645308380_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqU5YWHajv4hbPp_AG8e9kMN9TfLQ0ChWA23VP1SzfJos.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Saudi Arabia is becoming boxing’s “new Las Vegas” and the top destination for heavyweight fights, according to legendary promoter Bob Arum.
Arum has played a leading role in the sport for six decades, starting with his relationship with Muhammad Ali and continuing through to Tyson Fury in the current era.
Arum, who turned 92 last week, says he believes the blue riband heavyweight division is “now as robust as it has ever been” thanks to the growing interest and influence of Saudi Arabia. He says that the sport’s latest development, which includes a card in Riyadh on Saturday night featuring 10 of the world’s top 15 heavyweights – among them Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder – is a welcome revolution.
Arum began working in 1961 as a new-minted Harvard graduate lawyer with the US attorney’s office and was asked by Robert Kennedy “to organise the seizure of all the funds from a fight between Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson”. He has since worked in boxing eras beginning with heavyweight champion Liston, through the golden age of Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis and beyond.
Every period has brought problems and changes in boxing, especially in how the fights have been consumed by fans. So, does Arum see Saudi Arabia developing as Las Vegas once did?
“It’s beyond my pay grade whether they will ever have casinos in Riyadh,” Arum says. “I would have no idea, but I’m glad you mention Vegas, because in the Seventies and particularly in the Eighties, Vegas became Vegas largely because the powers-that-be put up the money – extremely high at the time – to get these big fights there, with Ali, Mike Tyson and so on, to attract people and call everybody’s attention there.
“Las Vegas, at that point, didn’t have a single professional sports franchise, and it worked. And I really believe that what’s happening now in Riyadh – attracting these big events and bringing all these great fighters to perform will have a similar impact going forward. What they’re trying to accomplish is to make Saudi Arabia, and Riyadh specifically, a sports and entertainment capital of the world.”
Arum, though, denies one era is better than another and celebrates the abundant talent of today.
“As an old guy, I have so much feeling for the Ali era and what we did during that period. That being said, heavyweight boxing is probably more vibrant now than it has been in a long, long time,” Arum says. “We have so many terrific heavyweights from all over the world, and the competition should be really great among them and this December 23 card in Riyadh – which pits many of the top heavyweights against each other – is really splendid.
“That continues on February 17 when there will be an undisputed heavyweight champion, God willing [when Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk meet for all the heavyweight titles, in Saudi Arabia, the first undisputed title fight for 25 years]. So it’s really not fair comparing it to the Ali era, but we’re in a really great position with heavyweight boxing.”
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The key right now, says Arum, is the timing and passion for boxing in Saudi Arabia. “His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh, who is a huge boxing fan and is running things, determines how much each fighter is worth, and it is so far above what the fighters would make as a percentage of pay-per-view that determines the market.
“It’s so much easier to make those fights because you don’t spend endless time negotiating the minutiae as each fighter, for example Fury and Usyk, are getting purses that they wouldn’t have dreamed about two or three years ago.”
The catalyst for change is not only getting Joshua and Wilder on the same card, but also rival promoters Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn working together.
“Well, again, when there’s real money there, all of these animosities which seemed so important as everybody fought it out suddenly dissipate, because all parties want in on the events as it’s the most lucrative thing they can do.”
Arum reaffirmed that boxing had always been as much a business as a sport. “That’s why they call it professional sports. Professional means that the athletes, no matter what sport they’re in, get paid for what they do, whether it’s American football, basketball or soccer, those sports are all businesses. The participants make money, sometimes life-changing money.”
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Arum’s understanding of the world of boxing – from politics, to its peaks and troughs over the past 60-odd years – means his opinion that it is in a strong position is worth listening to.
“Thanks to the great talent in the division – including Fury and Usyk and thanks to the interest of His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh and the Saudi Arabian entertainment fund – heavyweight boxing has never been as robust as it is now,” Arum says.
“Fights that couldn’t be made because fighters were quibbling over this percentage and that percentage, that’s no longer the case. We could be heading into another golden era with all the fights we wanted being made.
“They’re smart people, so I think that’s going to make it easier as we go on if this continues with making big fights in the heavyweight division and whatever other divisions in boxing the Saudi fund is interested in getting involved in.”
“Day of Reckoning” on Saturday, is part of Riyadh season and will be available live on TNT Sports Box Office and DAZN