“God bless him,” responded Tyson Fury from the top table of the final press conference for his fight with Oleksandr Usyk when he was encouraged to send his opponent “one last message.”

“I’ll say a prayer for him before we go out that we both get out the ring in one piece and go home to our families,” the 35-year-old continued, “because that’s what it’s about.”

Whether Fury starting the week of the biggest fight of his career being asked about the recent tragic death of the British professional debutant Sherif Lawal contributed to him finishing Thursday’s press conference as it did remains unclear. In so many respects it is also almost irrelevant. By gone 10pm in the soulless Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh, what else could there possibly have been for him to say?

He and Usyk had been asked about each other, repeatedly, before and after Fury’s victory over Francis Ngannou at the same venue in October, ahead of the fight they were expected to have in December 2023. They were repeatedly asked about each other again until their rescheduled date in February was postponed, and they have repeatedly answered questions about each other ever since.

They crossed paths on Monday at a luxurious Hilton hotel, when they conducted countless interviews. They spoke again at the grand arrivals on Tuesday evening at BLVD City, presumably the least evocative entertainment center that exists anywhere in the Middle East. Twenty-four hours later, on the very same stage at which they had “arrived”, they conducted open workouts – and a further 24 hours later they were back at the same spot sat at the top table of the press conference intended to publicize their fight once again.

It has been mentioned, repeatedly, that 25 years have passed since the last undisputed heavyweight title fight took place, that Lennox Lewis and the similarly great Evander Holyfield were the fighters involved, and even that Emanuel Steward – of the same Kronk Gym as Sugahill Steward, Fury’s trainer on Saturday – was involved. What’s been mentioned considerably less are the locations Lewis and Holyfield – who have arrived in Riyadh – fought in, and perhaps because their rematch in Las Vegas and their first fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden offer the type of history the richer-than-God Saudi Arabians couldn’t possibly buy.

The 1999 Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis clashes for undisputed heavyweight supremacy took place in New York City and Las Vegas to much fanfare.

If Fury’s reluctance come Thursday evening to be the showman the almost-unprecedented number of broadcasters hope is a reflection of not only his respect for Usyk but of his focus then those around them seem to have become weary and fatigued by the near-endless hype.

A sufficiently appealing fight in a true fight city – Vegas and New York are prominent among them – so often guarantees a sense of momentum and a growing energy and anticipation that means that those responsible for leading the fight’s promotion rarely need to convincingly try. Fury-Usyk is the most significant fight for a quarter of a century but those involved, not helped by how far Riyadh is from cultures in which the highest-profile fights remain essential, appear close to running out of ideas.

None of which will matter in the early hours of Sunday morning, when the world’s two leading heavyweights – evenly and intriguingly matched – are stood in opposite corners of the ring at the Kingdom Arena awaiting the opening bell. Riyadh will forever remain the venue that staged the most essential of contests – and perhaps the only one with the resources and ambition to make it happen – but unlike when Fury fought Deontay Wilder in Los Angeles in 2018 and his promoter Frank Warren would have relished detecting both the tension and anticipation growing, those present in 2024 recognize that in Riyadh there is essentially no such thing.

Usyk and Anthony Joshua weren’t even considered the world’s two leading heavyweights when they fought in London in 2021 but it is a certainty that Usyk reveled in the occasion at the impressive Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The sense of catharsis and post-pandemic celebrations from the 66,287 present created the memorable atmosphere for what remains his finest hour; it also, to use one of the boxing cliches redundant in Riyadh, represented him going into the lion’s den.

Usyk’s first triumph over Anthony Joshua took place in front of 60,000-plus fans at Hotspur Stadium in Tottenham, England. Photo by Mark Robinson/ Matchroom Boxing

He had done similarly three years earlier in Moscow, when he was so fluid in victory over Russia’s Murat Gassiev in the face of near-unrivalled hostility, and even in the rematch in 2022 with Joshua in Jeddah – also in Saudi Arabia – he was fighting for the first time since Russia had launched its murderous invasion of his country and perhaps ensured that his determination was at an all-time high.

In 2024 the atrocities Russia are committing in Ukraine are less newsworthy to those outside of its borders, and they are not about to become a dominant narrative around Fury-Usyk in Saudi Arabia because of the openly positive relationship that exists between Vladimir Putin and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

If Fury-Usyk was held at a more worthy venue it wouldn’t change the near-unrivalled appeal that will exist when they finally – and at a time when they remain competitively matched and close to their remarkable peaks – make their way to the ring. But if it was, the final days before they do would have been memorable and for many involved enjoyable instead of forgettable and to be endured.

On Friday Fury and Usyk will weigh in, they may or may not look each at each other when they are instructed to face off, and they will feel the tension and some of the nerves that are inevitable on the eve of their biggest fight.

They will then be asked to speak again, and likely again have very little to offer, and largely because as a fight venue Riyadh has so little to offer, and also because for the fourth time in four days they will again be stood in the same uninspiring place.

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