In the old days, it was London.
For a long time, it was New York, or Las Vegas. Even Atlantic City had its day (Trump liked it there).
Today, unquestionably, the centre – or ‘Mecca’ – of the world of boxing is Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. A country not hitherto known for its pugilists has quickly become the summit that all professional boxers aspire to reach. In February, Riyadh hosted possibly the greatest collection of boxing matches of all time. This sumptuous feast of fights was known as the ‘Last Crescendo’ of the Riyadh Season, a series of cultural and sporting events introduced in 2019 to support Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman’s ‘Saudi Vision 2030’.
But as two elite Russian light-heavyweights faced off in front of a largely sedate crowd, consisting incongruously of Saudi Arabian men in matching thawbs and American boxing legends in their individual finery, I wondered if there was something on show about the state of the world in 2025.
After all, just a few days beforehand, some other elite Russians were in town for talks with senior US diplomats about the end of the war in Ukraine. While Riyadh has previously opened its arms to Ukraine’s undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, this time there were no Ukrainians present. Instead, the US and Russia pledged to continue talks – likely also in Riyadh – on the terms for an end to the fighting over Ukraine’s eastern end. Implicitly, this suggests a future heavyweight face-off between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Saudi Arabia is one of many emerging states, including neighbouring Qatar, increasingly able to bring together the world’s elites. So where might the ‘old world’ of the UK and Europe still have a niche? Saturday night may have provided some clues: while the boxers were drawn from a wide range of countries, it was British promoters who delivered them. The heads of the major UK promotional outfits – both drawn from London’s eastern end – were sat ringside next to Turki bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Sheikh, the chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority, and the undisputed champion of global boxing.
Also, while Turki clearly brought the money, it was the British Boxing Board of Control that authorised the bouts themselves, and so the UK provided the referees for all the fights, and nearly half of the judges; whatever the origin of the fighters or the prize, it was therefore always an Englishman (or one Scot) who maintained fair play. All the contests were, of course, under the rules created in England in 1867 under the sponsorship of the ninth Marquess of Queensberry.
So what might these two Riyadh-based match-ups tell us about today’s global order? Certainly, the influence of ‘Old Europe’ remains prominent in setting the terms for sporting events, just as it does for international trade, human rights and justice – the International Criminal Court remains in the Netherlands, the global maritime system is still insured from London, and FIFA (the custodian of world football) shows no signs of leaving Switzerland, where its neighbours include the World Trade Organisation, World Health Organisation and International Committee of the Red Cross. In recent years, the EU has become world-leading in setting the rules for using things – such as the internet and AI – that have often been invented or pioneered elsewhere. The bloc’s habitual preference for consensus clearly still has its uses.
However, the money has clearly moved, and the ‘rules-based international order’ may yet go with it. For now, it may suffice for the newer global powers of the Middle East and Asia to simply re-locate European, rules-based trifles such as boxing, car racing and golf to their territory. We Europeans may tell ourselves that we still have control, because we are the custodians of the rules – we wrote them, and we know them off by heart; we still do our best to make sure other people play by them, especially in conflict (staged or otherwise).
But we should make no mistake. If Turki Al-Sheikh wanted to change the rules of boxing, no-one could stop him, because he has the money and vision to make the big fights happen. FIFA has already shown itself to be heavily influenced by the money of the new world, and their desires for where and when the game is to be played (including disrupting the entire European football calendar for a World Cup in Qatar). Similarly, more and more diplomatic deals are now being struck outside Europe and the Anglosphere. If the new world wants to change the rules of the game, who could – or should – stop them?
I wonder what this all means for the future of Europe. Should it just accept its role as referees and rule-keepers, while the world is actually run by others? Or does Europe need to reacquire some of the innovative energy that made it great in the first place? Under attack from Russia, does it need to re-learn how to fight, as well as how to make peace? Should it continue to stand by the rules even when our friends and allies start to break them? In the new world, where even America seems indifferent to the existing international order, one thing is clear – the gloves are off.