Daniel Dubois delivers fitting finale to Riyadh Season's spectacular UK debut

Carl Frampton, the former world champion boxer, summed it up when asked how Riyadh Season boxing events differ from regular world title nights. "They just do it bigger and better," he said while working as a television analyst from inside Wembley Stadium early on Saturday evening.

At the time, a smattering of fans had taken their seats before it would soon fill to a British record 96,000-capacity attendance in time for the headline fight – a heavyweight world title showdown between IBF belt holder Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua, the former two-time unified champion and the biggest star in British boxing.

Their fight would act as the climax not only to what organisers hoped would be an exciting evening of boxing but to the week-long festivities, which began on Tuesday with the glitzy Grand Arrivals at Leicester Square in central London.

The open workouts on Wednesday, set inside Wembley Arena in front of a constructed Buckingham Palace, were enhanced by the staging of three professional bouts, including one involving Aadam Hamed, the son of British boxing great 'Prince' Naseem.

Thursday's press conferences were held in the grand and historic Guildhall before Friday's weigh-ins attracted a sizeable crowd to Trafalgar Square. A fan zone at Wembley's Boxpark was crammed with thousands of fans throughout Saturday and had visits from former heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury and other notable fighters past and present.

A stacked undercard – a hallmark of every Riyadh Season show, both in Saudi Arabia and now abroad – got the evening underway at Wembley Stadium and saw four absorbing and competitive bouts before Hamzah Sheeraz's two-round destruction of Tyler Denny to win the European middleweight title in the co-main event.

The build-up to the headline fight featured a spectacular fireworks display and a concert from Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher in his first performance since the announcement that the popular band was reuniting for a 2025 tour.

For all the glitz, glamour, and razzmatazz, and after months of planning, matchmaking, and ambitious logistics, Riyadh Season's hopes of the perfect UK debut rested on the main event – and boy, did it deliver.

The overwhelming majority of the near-100,000 fans inside Wembley roared their support for Joshua, who was aiming to complete his latest redemption arc by becoming a three-time world champion, an honour reserved for a select few all-time greats, including Muhammad Ali.

Dubois, on the other hand, may have been the champion, but he was treated as the B-side on Saturday night; he entered the ring first to boos and his name came second on the poster. Had it gone to script, the 27-year-old Englishman would have been a footnote in the latest chapter of the Joshua saga.

Instead, the fighter nicknamed 'Dynamite' blew that script to smithereens with each bomb he detonated to Joshua's head. He had his superstar opponent in all sorts of trouble right from the opening round and secured an emphatic stoppage in the fifth, bringing to an end a riveting, edge-of-the-seat heavyweight contest and providing a fitting finale to a spectacularly successful debut for Riyadh Season in London.

"Are you not entertained?" Dubois said after the biggest win of his 24-fight career. "It's been a journey and I'm grateful to be in this position. I'm a gladiator, I'm a warrior until the bitter end. I want to get to the top of this sport and reach my full potential."

Dubois will now have a close eye on the next big Riyadh Season heavyweight boxing event, which will return to Saudi Arabia and will see unified champion Oleksandr Usyk face Tyson Fury in a rematch of their all-time classic on December 21. A showdown with the winner for all the gold will inevitably be discussed for some time in 2025.

Many fans – and certainly most commercial partners – would have hoped it was Joshua instead of Dubois waiting in the wings for a crack at either Usyk or Fury. That may still be the case. Despite the savage beating he received in London, Joshua insisted he won't be walking away from boxing, with his promoter, Eddie Hearn, saying it was a "given" his fighter would target the rematch.

Dubois, however, has proved himself a worthy adversary to challenge for the undisputed title, and while he did lose to Usyk last year, the IBF champion has drastically improved, both in skill and maturity, since then.

However it all plays out over the coming months, the fights will keep coming, and Riyadh Season will continue to deliver "bigger and better" shows both at home and around the world.

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