The Riyadh Season organizer agreed with the judges on Saturday night’s Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury decision and shared his thoughts for what’s next for both fighters.
We’re halfway through the 2024-2025 Riyadh Season and it’d be impossible to deny that Turki Alalshikh has once again delivered on providing boxing fans with some of the biggest fights in the sport’s history.
Saturday night saw Oleksandr Usyk defeat Tyson Fury in a rematch of their May fight, confirming he’s the best heavyweight boxer in the world (watch the highlights here). To see the heavyweight title get unified for the first time in 25 years was impressive. To see the two fighters meet again just seven months later shows how much stability Saudi Arabia’s deep pockets have brought to the top of the sport.
In addition to Usyk vs. Fury 2, this Riyadh Season has featured Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol and Francis Ngannou’s return to MMA. In February 2025 the UFC returns to Saudi Arabia with Israel Adesanya vs. Nassourdine Imavov, and then ‘The Last Crescendo’ goes down featuring Beterbiev vs. Bivol 2 and Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker.
In an interview with The Stomping Grounds, Alalshikh shared his thoughts on Usyk vs. Fury 2 and the fights he wants to put together down the road.
“I thought [Usyk] won,” he said. “He had four rounds more, by my count. Tyson did everything, he had an amazing fight, but this is boxing. There is one winner and loser.”
Turki’s scoring is a bit more moderate than that of his historic ‘4th Judge’ artificial intelligence that was scoring the fight unofficially. 4th Judge had the bout a 118-112 blowout for Usyk.
As for what’s next?
Here’s The Ring’s AI-powered judge’s experimental scorecard from the Usyk2Fury fight While it didn’t influence the official result, it offers a unique and unbiased perspective on the fight pic.twitter.com/Xo8sbiIkRc
— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) December 22, 2024
“Next, I want … if Dubois wins in February [against Parker], I want to see Usyk and Dubois again,” Alalshikh said. “And I want to see Tyson maybe with Joshua or something. We will decide.”
“Let’s see what can happen,” he said of the long hoped for but never delivered Fury vs. Joshua fight. “Everything at Riyadh Season is realistic. Inshallah, I hope [next year is bigger and better]. The most important thing is the fans enjoy it.”
One thing is for sure: Saudi Arabia will continue to be the center of the boxing universe so long as Turki Alalshikh continues to deliver big fights in a timely fashion.