So at this time last week I was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Mario Lopez and I had the opportunity to cover the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury for the heavyweight championship of the world.
In the past year or so, Riyadh has become a central location for some of the biggest fights in boxing (which has upset some for some reason).
I was told years ago by Larry Merchant, ''they go where the money is." And simply put, Turki Alalshikh and his organization are bringing the most amount of money to the table -- and quite frankly, consummating bouts that otherwise wouldn't otherwise come to fruition. . I was told that there's a reason why they call it 'prizefighting', so what exactly do you expect boxers and their handlers to do? Not take these lucrative assignments?
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Oh, now you care about the future of the business. That's funny (but not in a ha ha way).
Anyway, here are some tidbits on my trip last week.
- Our flights began at LAX in Los Angeles at 11 pm on Tuesday night. We flew into New York's JFK at 7:42 the following morning, before departing on a Qatar Airways flight to Qatar. We landed at 6:35 in the morning. By 8:45 am, we took off for our final leg to Riyadh. By 10:25, our feet were in Saudi Arabia.
The trip back home began just several hours after the conclusion of the main event, which meant staying up and catching a 7 am connection to Bahrain. By 10:25 that morning, we connected to London Heathrow, where we landed at 2:45 in the afternoon. By 4:55 we were loaded up and on our way back to Los Angeles(this was about an 11 hour trip).
Just about every layover we had was at least 90 minutes, which was fine by me since I checked in a bag. It felt like winning the lottery each time I saw my luggage coming through. I have to say, these airports in Riyadh, Bahrain and Qatar are downright opulent, and the cleanest I've ever roamed through.
These are long flights, but they are made much easier by being booked in business class.
- Over the course of my flights, I was able to finish off these books:
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In addition to 'Showtime' by Jeff Pearlman, which was by far the longest book of this trip.
- We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental (which made me feel right at home), and it was certainly very nice. Their international buffet was among the best I've ever had.
- Driving into town, you really see the Western influence in Saudi Arabia. You saw American staples such as Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, among many others. The architecture is very modern and state-of-the-art throughout the region.
- The fight card was held at the Kingdom Arena, and I have to say, it's the coldest indoor venue I've ever been at. It had to be in the mid-50's. Doug Fischer -- who I did the Ring Watch-along alternative broadcast with for DAZN -- warned me as he got there that it was freezing in there. He wasn't wrong. I didn't even think of taking my jacket off the whole night. Meat lockers probably don't keep their temperatures as low.
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So is it that they just chose not to use their central air/heating, or they just don't have it? And if that's the case, is it 110-degrees inside that place in the summer?
- Thursday night at the big Ring Magazine Gala the contact lens in my right eye ripped, which caused some issues. As I took it off later that evening, my eye was red (really, really red), and tearing up. It was actually difficult to open it fully through much of Friday. Mario went camel riding, I had to pass since just being in the sunlight made my eye very uncomfortable.
If there was an eye patch available I would've done my impersonation of the Raiders logo.
Fortunately, it got much better by Saturday. But I'm not wearing contacts again till the new year.
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- In the final lead up to the main event, there was certainly a lot of fancy in-arena bells-and-whistles. But what stood out to me was the performance of drummer, Thomas Pridgen, who did an incredible job playing to 'Eye of the Tiger' by Survivor. Yeah, I've listened to that classic song (which was the theme for 'Rocky III') numerous times, but I never heard it quite like that.
3KR
Here is the final episode of 'the 3 Knockdown Rule' for 2024, where Mario and I further detail the fight, and our trip:
THE 3 KNOCKDOWN RULE EPISODE 69 | 3KR AT RIYADH SEASON
3knockdownrule - Listen on YouTube, Spotify - Linktree
