“Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield will finally enter a boxing ring together, primed for battle, on the night of June 18.”
So read the opening paragraph of a report in the Los Angeles Times in January 1990. The piece also noted how a certain Donald Trump had the right of first refusal to stage the world heavyweight title fight at one of his properties in Atlantic City.
A few weeks later, at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, Trump took a ringside seat next to the promoter Don King as James ‘Buster’ Douglas wrecked those summer plans - and the unbeaten record of Tyson - in what remains the most colossal upset in heavyweight boxing history.
The odds laid against Douglas, 42-1, became the title of an acclaimed documentary and a reference point for all-time sporting earthquakes. And then came what is generally regarded as the second-highest reading on the heavyweight Richter scale …
In late-May 2019, Anthony Joshua told me in an interview for the BBC that he was “going to reach out to Deontay Wilder to see if I can have a sit-down in person". We were in New York for Joshua’s defence of his world titles against Andy Ruiz Jr. and much of the focus was on what would happen beyond their Saturday night clash at Madison Square Garden.
Wilder had blitzed his fellow American Dominic Breazeale in 137 seconds over in Brooklyn a fortnight earlier and the clamour for a showdown against Joshua, which had been brewing for three years, intensified. Joshua later admitted that a yearning to match Wilder’s highlight-reel KO led to his downfall against Ruiz Jr.
Will the desire to out-dazzle each other influence the mindset of Joshua and Wilder in Riyadh this weekend? The date of March 9th next year has been floated for what Wilder described recently as “the biggest fight in combat sport, period.”
“When people talk to me,” he added, “the main thing they talk about is me and Joshua, all the time.”
Otto Wallin and Joseph Parker are the potential stumbling blocks in the path of two men who bring different kinds of emotional and physical baggage to the ring.
For Wilder, now 38, is inactivity as much of a threat as Parker? In the four years since beating Breazeale, he has boxed only four times. He suffered five knockdowns in his two defeats against Tyson Fury and a first-round win over Robert Helenius marks his only outing in the last two years.
Wilder admitted while talking to British reporters at the official press conference in London in mid-November that he had fallen out of love with the sport for a while – at the age of 38, has his body done likewise? In other interviews, Wilder insisted that the lay-off has left him fresh rather than rusty.
Joshua is fending off the doubters as he strives for redemption after the crushing setback against Ruiz Jr and two defeats by Oleksandr Usyk. Joshua’s points win against Jermaine Franklin last April might look better in time, as we get more evidence of Franklin’s ability at or near the top level.
And there will be a new face and new voice in Joshua’s corner. Ben Davison was with Fury when the Gypsy King outpointed Wallin in Las Vegas in September 2019 and therefore might offer precious insight.
But Robert Garcia, the former world super-featherweight champion who trained Joshua for the Usyk rematch, is not convinced: “I don’t think there’s any trainer in the world that’s gonna make a big difference,” he said to ‘Boxing News’ last week.
Garcia’s thinking ties in with the philosophy of Enzo Calzaghe, who masterminded so much of the success of his son Joe. When Joe fought Mikkel Kessler in Cardiff in 2007, Kessler promised beforehand that his style would be different to what we had seen before. When I put the claim to Enzo, he smirked and said that “eventually they all revert to type, to do what they’ve always done."
Garcia, in the same interview last week, offered the view that “Joshua is probably the most talented in the heavyweight division.” Joshua has spoken in the past about different phases of his career – is there another one to come, at a time when the landscape of boxing is being altered by the economic clout of Saudi Arabia?
The Riyadh Season is becoming entrenched in the boxing calendar, playing host to the two most talked-about bills in the heavyweight division in 2023. And with more to come: Fury versus Usyk is earmarked for February 17 … to be followed by Joshua against Wilder?
Many are the times such plans have been scuppered, which is why the Day of Reckoning is also the Day of Jeopardy.