THE short man jumped in the lift at the last second, wearing a WBC t-shirt and with a face that betrayed his love of the boxing business.
“You with the boxing?” he asked. “I’m with the WBC; I used to be the commissioner in Illinois.” It was 8:38am, welcome to a day in a fight hotel during fight week in Riyadh.
Ten minutes later, three plates of local food later, there had been a procession of people in the restaurant; there was also a man loading up on sliced pineapple that looked exactly like Phillip Fondu. The Belgian hunter, dentist and infamous boxing agent was on a table on his own in Riyadh. I’m still not sure it was him.
By 11 am, the lobby was buzzing. Spencer Brown and his people were on one table, which was now surrounded by 10 chairs. Joseph Parker’s people are on another island with small tables and comfortable chairs. The Smiths were standing over by the ice cream trolley – it was a theme hotel. A walk from the lifts to the coffee shop might take an hour with opinions, gossip, fake news and predictions.
Joe Gallagher seemed to constantly be in the Mike Tyson gym or on his way to the Tyson gym; he had Mo Alakel at his side most of the time and, obviously, Tasha Jonas. Life goes on in all directions for Gallagher. The Tyson gym is run by Bobby Rimmer and Brian Rose – it’s a bizarre outpost by any standards. At any fight hotel, in any city in the world, it is impossible to predict the people. Gallagher kept moving most of the time in the hotel.
The Floyd Schofield incident dominated for about a day and every cluster of fighters and their people had a theory. On the Monday, I had done the first BBC pod of the week with Darren Barker and neither of us had liked Schofield’s demeanour. He looked like a boy, a bit nervous and certainly not loving being part of the whole circus.
I think that we expected him to withdraw – he looked massive when he stripped down for pictures and, as a warning to fools, it takes more than a developed six-pack to pass any type of pre-fight medical and meet the weight requirements.
On the long media day, which starts every week in Riyadh, the boxers are alone in rooms, often left with just one member of their swollen team; they can be raw, exposed, stripped down to their kecks. It’s a good place and time to make a judgement on their state of mind.
Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol remain unshakeable under any conditions; other fighters on the bill show just a few other private signs. Some give away their thoughts and others conceal their secrets – I often change my thinking during the intense day. I sat with Barry Jones four days later and we were both impressed with the same two fighters after their appearance on Monday.
The days are long – my interview schedule stretched from 12:55 to 18:55. It ran over and I finished closer to 20:20. The long Mondays are ideal for meeting and talking; I grabbed five minutes with Andy Lee, Don Charles and a few others.
The lobby was thick with trainers and fixers attached to fighters. In Riyadh, there are, obviously, far fewer cowboys strolling through. There are still some attached to fighters. There is always somebody with a white glove to be signed – that is a constant in any fight city and hotel.
There is far less ceremony during the media day, just hours behind a door talking to the fighters and their people. The ceremony comes once the venue switches to the outside, the light show begins, and the red carpet is stretched. The Grand Arrivals, open workouts, press conference and weigh-in all follow the same pattern in Saudi; the boxers arrive separately and in staggered limousines.
They then wait in a holding hall, with four seated areas, for the call to get in the golf buggies for the short journey to the start of the red carpet. The holding room can have 120 people inside and that includes the security. It can be mayhem in there. If Jarrell Miller is in the room at the same time as Anthony Joshua, it can get a bit lively. As the days tick down and the hours pass, all fighters just want to get on with it and the last thing they want is to be in a room with the man they are fighting in a day or two or three.
Or, in Miller’s case, a man with a very big mouth. Still, it’s all part of the business now. I once showed Lennox Lewis a boxer’s schedule for a Riyadh Season event, and he just shook his head; Lennox offered his time in limited segments during a fight week.
Away from the comforts of the hotel, the boxing fringe fills up with guests and heroes; Bernard Hopkins talking to everybody and Oscar De La Hoya smiling away in his slipstream. De La Hoya would have loved fighting in Riyadh.
There is a point, a day or so before the Saturday when the rumours of arrivals start. Will Sugar Ray Leonard be coming in? Wladimir Klitschko? Donald Trump? George Foreman? Floyd Mayweather? It is standard. Don King would always put out a list of the famous men and women attending his vast Las Vegas shows and they would all get a mention on the night – it made no difference that Denzel Washington, who was announced as a ringside guest, was in Rome making a movie at the time. It’s part of the fight-week hype.
And when it slows down in the afternoon, a quick look in the restaurant reveals Roberto Duran with a giant sandwich, members of Bivol’s team in a huddle over a dozen empty coffee cups. The fight hotel is a busy place during fight week.
