How Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn…

For 15 years, Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn have dominated the British boxing landscape, while the sport has become one of the most popular in the region.

And for 15 years, Warren and Hearn did not speak face to face. This means that many of the best British matches are on the sidelines, just like their counterparts in the states where promoters rarely do business with each other.

The conflict between Warren, 72, and Hearn, 44, finally ended last November.

At that time Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the Public Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, brought the pair to a meeting in London at the Day of Reckoning press conference, an event that featured fighters aligned with the two promoters.

Hearn said Alalshikh was “quite withdrawn” in response to his union with Warren. And good business too. “We’re professional sports,” Warren told ESPN on Tuesday alongside Hearn. “And we find our guys want to get the best money and we want to make money.”

Now, with Warren and Hearn no longer at loggerheads, the rivalry will face off in Riyadh as part of a unique, team-based concept created by Alalshikh that will pit five boxers Warren from Queensberry Promotions with five selected by Hearn Matchroom Boxing. the show is called “5 vs. 5.”

“It’s really weird,” Hearn told ESPN of the duo’s long radio silence. “And in all honesty, without His Highness (Alalshikh) participating and without this landscape change, we wouldn’t be able to talk. Because if you’re not going to do it after 15 years, you’re just not going to do it.

“We’re both pretty stubborn,” Hearn added. “You just get to the point where, like, we can’t work together. We have our own platform, our own fighters. Good luck. And I think I speak for both of them: the best I’ve done, definitely the most excited and excited which I have experienced throughout my career.

For boxing fans, it must be surreal — but heartening — to hear those words. Saturday’s game is interesting even without the stakes involved in the team’s draft.

One point will be awarded for each victory by decision, two points for a KO/TKO win, and double for the team captains: Deontay Wilder, who signed with Matchroom before the heavyweight main event against Zhilei Zhang, and Hamzah Sheeraz, who will represent Queensberry in middleweight fight vs. Austin “Ammo” Williams. The winning promoter will get $3 million.

“Boxing has always been an individual sport and now we’re doing five vs. Five. It’s like the team concept that was first introduced in the sport of boxing,” Zhang, 41, told ESPN in comments translated from Chinese. “And I like the idea, I like what we did. I believe that everyone in our team trains very respectfully. And I believe that getting points for the team is always good.”

The other six fighters will be looking for points for the promoter. Queensberry’s Daniel Dubois meets Filip Hrgovic with the winner expected to face Anthony Joshua on September 20 at London’s Wembley Stadium at the Riyadh Season event. All five heavyweights on the card are ranked in the top 10 on ESPN. Raymond Ford (an American promoted by Hearn) defends his WBA featherweight title vs. Nick Ball in a fight that could easily stand as its own main event.

The biggest underdog in the top three fights is Dubois at +210, per ESPN BET, reflecting the competitive nature of the slate.

Opening bout: Willy Hutchinson-Craig Richards at light heavyweight.

The fight series was tied by Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed lightweight championship before Beterbiev’s knee injury. Bivol will still fight on the card, defending his WBA light heavyweight title against replacement Malik Zinad.

While there is a lot at stake between the former bitter enemies – bragging rights along with prize money – there is arguably more on the line for the fighters, especially Zhang and Wilder. Both heavyweights are reeling from upset losses to Joseph Parker in Riyadh.

“Deontay didn’t look good of late, so he has to try and redeem himself and ‘Big Bang’ (Zhang) wants to come back,” Warren said. “He had Parker on the second floor, he did well in the fight until the end. For me, the loser of this fight, I don’t think he has a lot of places to go to let him know what’s on the line. Why is it going to be a competitive fight? .”

And perhaps, more than anything else, what Alalshikh’s interest in sports — with cards was the latest example – represents. The way other boxing power brokers usually operate, Wilder will likely languish for more than a year after his loss to Parker, before returning in a tune-up match against a low-level fighter.

This is the path Wilder took after his November loss against Tyson Fury was named ESPN’s 2021 Fight of the Year (along with KO of the Year). Wilder’s comeback fight came 11 months later in a first-round KO of journeyman Robert Helenius.

The American, now 38, did not fight for another 13 months, and at that time, he became a shell of his former self in a lackluster loss to Parker last December. Wilder entered the ring a -700 favorite, according to ESPN BET. Zhang, too, was favored to beat Parker when they fought on March 8; no problem. Now, the two big men have a chance to quickly erase the stench of defeat and put themselves in position for another marquee battle.

“It gave Wilder another run,” Hearn said. “If he defeats Zhang, everyone will call him to fight again… These people know this on the cards: you lose, you may be a person who forgets His Majesty, be brutal. You win and win in style , he would go, ‘I want him back.’ So they are fighting too.”

Alalshikh planning August 3 fight between Wilder and rising contender Jared Anderson in the loaded Terence Crawford-Israel Madrimov Riyadh Season undercard in Los Angeles, but the former heavyweight champion should do well vs. Zhang, even in defeat. The long-awaited fight against Joshua is also on the table. Wilder was set to meet Joshua on March 8 but a loss to Parker scuppered his plans.

“I told Wilder, I’m ready to deliver (the Joshua fight) but it depends on his performance against Zhang,” Alalshikh told ESPN in April. “If he doesn’t care about himself, I’m not responsible. I gave him two chances but I can’t give him a third.”

This could just be the beginning of team based boxing. It has been done at a lower level before: There is a semi-pro World Series of Boxing where top amateurs like heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk once competed. There is also the Team Battle League, which is currently operating but does not have many top level fighters.

“The two promoters involved are integral to the boxing industry and will play an important role in the new boxing project,” Alalshikh told ESPN on Thursday. “The promoters embrace this vision based on their experience with us so far, and will continue to work with us to bring boxing back. The next stage we take part in is a competition involving our partners, US-based promoters vs UK-based promoters, an event we believe fans will embrace with enthusiasm.”

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has disrupted golf with its team-based LIV Golf tour — with massive funding for the sport — and more of the same may be here to stay in boxing. Not boxers fighting together, of course, but in a Ryder Cup-like format where boxers represent a country or promotion.

“It’s got all the juice,” Warren said. “We are full of it and we both want to win this badly. And it captured everyone’s imagination. It has been fantastic through the auspices of His Highness. He actually asked us together, banging our heads together and said, ‘don’t shut up.’

“The finances available for Musim Riyad have created a different landscape,” he said. “But now it’s all over the world… It’s a great time for boxing, a great time for us, and we’ve got to get it done and we’re going to be complete schmucks to ruin it.”