Turki Alalshikh promotes a Night of the Champions event at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this Saturday night, and at the top of a stacked bill, David Benavidez defends his WBC light heavyweight title for the first time against Anthony Yarde.
Benavidez fights at light heavyweight where he is set to meet hard hitting Yarde, DAZN screen the bill live.
There are four world title fights on offer on a mammoth card.
Benavidez (30-0, KO24) won the vacant WBC super middleweight title way back in 2017, and defended twice before dropping the belt as a result of missing weight before beating Roamer Alexis Angulo in 2020.
The Miami man would take the interim version of the title in 2022, hammering David Lemieux to defeat in three rounds, and defended against Caleb Plant and Demetrius Andrade before moving up to light heavyweight, where he took a points win against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in June last year to be interim WBC champion.
He defended in February while waiting for the Dmitry Bivol v Artur Beterbiev saga to play out winning on points against David Morrell, getting off the canvas in the penultimate round, and was upgraded to full champion later this year.
His first defence comes against the confident Essex-based Yarde (27-3, KO24), who is making his third tilt at a world title.
He was stopped in 11 in a solid effort against WBO boss Sergey Kovalev in 2019, and was ahead on two cards in January 2023 before being halted by Beterbiev for the unified title.
The Beast’ has won four times since at a lower level, the last a rubber-match points win against Lyndon Arthur in April.
Prediction: Benavidez is a big puncher, so Yarde’s best chance of winning is early. I favour Benavidez to grind Yarde down for a late stoppage
Brian Norman Jr vs Devin Haney
An intriguing clash at welterweight sees Devin Haney (32-0, KO15) move up to welterweight, where he will attempt to take the WBO title from Brian Norman Jr (28-0, KO22).
Haney reigned as unified lightweight champion, with points wins over the likes of Jorge Linares, George Kambosos Jr (twice) and Vasyl Lomachenko, and he then moved to super lightweight to take the WBC title with a masterful points win against Regis Prograis.
‘The Dream’ was last out in May, widely outscoring Jose Carlos Ramirez.
Norman is a big puncher, and after being upgraded to full WBO champion, he blasted Derrieck Cuevas out in three rounds in his first defence in March, and then travelled to Japan to wipe out Jin Sasaki in five in June.
Prediction: Haney can overcome an early storm to take the title on the scorecards.
Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez vs Fernando Martinez
WBC and WBO super flyweight champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez (22-0, KO15) attempts to add the WBA title to his collection, as he meets Fernando Martinez (18-0, KO9) for the trio of titles. Rodriguez added the WBO belt to his WBC crown in July, halting Phumelela Cafu in ten rounds, while Martinez had to drop his IBF title to take a rematch with Kazuto Ioka in Japan in May, winning on the cards after doing the same in their original meeting last July.
Prediction: Rodriguez can further unify here with a clear points win.
Sam Noakes vs Abdullah Mason
Maidstone’s Sam Noakes (17-0, KO15) goes for glory on the card, as he takes on Abdullah Mason (19-0, KO17) for the vacant WBO lightweight title.
Noakes has served as British, Commonwealth and European champion, but this is a massive ask against Cleveland-based Mason, who is coming off a fifth-round retirement win against Jeremia Nakathila.
He has never been 12 rounds, but Mason can take this one in a shootout by stoppage.
Remaining undercard
The sole ten-rounder is at middleweight, where Vito Mielnicki Jr (21-1, KO12) should stay in world title contention with a points win against unbeaten Nigerian Samuel Nmomah (21-0, KO5).
In six-round contests, Mohammed Alakel (6-0, KO1) can stay unbeaten with a points win against Jiaming Li (7-5, KO4) at super featherweight, and at super middleweight, Julio Porras Ruiz (13-0, KO9) can also remain unblemished by stopping Pius Mpenda (11-4-1, KO5).
In the only four-rounder, Sultan Almohammed (1-0, KO0) can outscore Umesh Chavan (3-1-1, KO0) in their lightweight meeting.
