It ends in an all-British heavyweight contest being rebranded as “Riyadh Season: Wembley Edition”, as if this country is now nothing more than a subsidiary of the Saudi state. 

And it ends, as I can attest, in a Saudi-style crackdown on freedom of the press in the heart of London.

Welcome to ‘Saudi Disneyland’

“Saudi Disneyland” was how I had described the build-up to Joshua versus Dubois. “A convenient vehicle for projecting the kingdom’s cachet to the world.” 

Having attended three fights involving Joshua or Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia since 2019, I had become fatalistic at the sell-out of it all. But this London chapter of the circus smacked of sportswashing on steroids, a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime on British soil. And so I wrote just that, in the full knowledge that the PRs fronting this production would bristle, but that it still needed saying.

The article (which you can read here) was published on The Telegraph website at 11.02am on Friday. At 2.28pm, an email arrived from a senior PR executive working on the fight. “Shall I presume from your opinions,” the message read, “that you no longer wish to attend as clearly you do not agree with Saudi Arabia’s involvement in boxing?”

Tempting as it was to reply in the strongest terms – given the clear indication here that accreditation of a British writer at a British fight involving two British boxers was now conditional upon what view you expressed about the Saudis – I chose moderation. “Perfectly willing to have a conversation about any of this,” I said. “You have my number. Yes, I would still like to attend the event to write a fight report. Best, Oliver.” 

No such offer of a telephone conversation was taken up. There was no mention in the exchange of the credential, already confirmed by two different people, being cancelled. On the contrary, a message arrived from Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions at 2.39pm to say where it could be collected.

As I arrived on fight night as arranged, a publicist prepared to hand me an orange wristband to enable access to the upstairs media lounge. But then people began to appear in the lobby to say that I was being denied entry and that there was nothing they could do. I made multiple calls and sent multiple texts asking if somebody would come downstairs so that the situation could at least be discussed in person. All went unanswered.