With this one we go pure stream of consciousness. It’s 5:24 a.m., Christmas Eve, and I have a fever of 103.4 due to a dengue infection that’s been kicking my butt for a few days. Third World Problems! Come to Mexico, be amazed by the beautiful caramel-skinned ladies, but be prepared for the occasional crippling dysentery and strange jungle diseases!
Saturday’s Doomsday PPV from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is now little more than a memory, like my sweat-soaked sheets crumpled in piles next to my bed. But fever dreams are fever dreams and that 8-hour long card, which was probably two-thirds filler between fights, was more like a fever dream than any pay-per-view show boxing has ever seen. Focus, interest and attention appeared and disappeared along that long journey. Five fights into the card, those intrepid boxing fans who watched from the beginning were already being tested to the limit. Even many of the pirate streamers Robin Hooding the card for the benefit of scoundrels everywhere began to decline. “Are you still watching?” messages began to appear on illegal streams, telling the story of hardened cyberthugs who themselves had fallen asleep or abandoned the card and had not interacted with the screen for at least a couple of years. times. hours.
And who could blame even the most hardened virtual criminals for walking away from a show that, at least in the first half of the broadcast, featured more commentary from Sunny Edwards than competitive in-ring action?
Just don’t talk so badly about Judgment Day in front of certain boxing people. They don’t listen to your sensible cries.
You saw these people everywhere on social media during the card and throughout the lead-up to the event. Boxing writers, podcasters, YouTubers, aspiring combat sports influencers. Everyone was running around, effusively complimenting this “stacked” card, trying to ingratiate themselves with Saudi money, just like these guys do every time they catch a whiff of new money coming into the business. Not long ago, the head of the Saudi sports and entertainment authority massively followed members of the Western media (myself included), something that told thirsty bastards that a new boxing sugar daddy would be watching them. Suddenly, indifference and negativity towards Saudi participation in sport turned into pure, fawning adoration and positivity.
“THIS was the kind of card boxing that was needed! More of this. We are tired of boxing companies putting non-competitive fights on PPV! But all we really needed was MORE non-competitive fights on our PPV! That was the answer! Do you think His Excellency Sheikh Turkey Leg Ali is paying attention to this? I hope so. Surely he could taste that blood money. Maybe they’ll invite me to Riyadh next time! I would really be a big shot if I had more interesting photos to post on social media!
By the way, let’s also not overlook the irony of these people who, just a day earlier, were clutching their pearls in outrage over Jermell Charlo’s domestic abuse accusation and then made the biggest about-face to fawningly support an entire nation that subjugates all their women under threat of violence and/or prison. You gotta love boxing people!
But what about fights, Paul? What’s with all that action on the most loaded and stacked card of all time?
Okay, voices in my head, okay…
Saturday’s good fights were the ones that ended early. Frank Sánchez, Filip Hrgovic and Jai Opetaia needed less than eight minutes combined to crush their hopeless rival. That was positive.
Agit Kabayel bothered that big, conceited ape Arslanbek Makhmudov was very sweet. Daniel Dubois-Jarrell Miller was fine, but neither inspires much support. So Dubois stopping Big Pharma with eight seconds left in the 10th didn’t really make me jump out of my sick bed.
Let’s not even talk about that 12-round waste of time by Dmitry Bivol. Better yet, let’s not talk about Bivol in general. By the way, I wish a vibrating dildo to the skull of the next friend who complains over and over again about the Russian’s great technique.
Now let’s move on to the “main events”.
Deontay Wilder. My Sir.
PBC went with Amazon Prime and the Saudis got the Wish.com version of The Bronze Bomber.
The former WBC champion did very little en route to a one-sided decision loss to former WBO champion Joseph Parker, who also didn’t do much.
With victory, Parker moves on to…nowhere? Nobody wants to see him fight Anthony Joshua again. Tyson Fury is his friend and stablemate. So unless Usyk defeats Fury (if they fight in February), Parker will be waiting a bit…maybe until his next Saudi payday?
Meanwhile, Wilder, based on what we saw of him in the ring, appears to be finished. And given his rambling post-fight interview about “peace and love,” the power of ayahuasca, anywhere is better for him than inside a ring. Consider that the Wilder-Joshua blockbuster “already signed” is deader than a dissident anti-Saudi journalist walking into the wrong embassy.
As for the Anthony Joshua-Otto Wallin main event?
(I’m wasting energy here, folks. Things are getting dark for me.)
Yes, Joshua looked good forcing the corner stoppage on his former training partner. But then again, had we all forgotten how shitty Wallin was and how ill-equipped he was going to be against someone like Joshua? But doing what he should do against the opposition he should do it against hasn’t been a sure thing for years, so I guess AJ gets a shining star on his forehead for this performance.
After the fight, Joshua beamed, smiling, “I’m cool,” like a kid who had struck out in the Little League all year, but now had just yelled a liner off a tee in his backyard. He says he would still fight Deontay Wilder. Of course he would.
So…ugh. That’s all. My duty to the boxing world is over for now. My not-for-sale perspective on this very for-sale boxing world that is emerging around Saudi money is officially on the record. Now I drink some electrolyte drinks and fall back into a semi-coma. Happy Holidays.
Do you have anything for Magno? Send it here: [email protected]
