Whilst the glitz and glamour of ‘Riyadh Season’ has taken over the world of boxing during 2024, there are plenty of cards that Turki Al-Alshikh is not involved with that appear to be flying under the radar. Now, it has been confirmed that one former heavyweight champion of the world will headline a card in front of a maximum of 1,100 onlookers.
Last month, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois went toe-to-toe for the IBF heavyweight title and broke the British boxing attendance record – around 96,000 witnessing the dramatic changing of the guard spectacle as Dubois halted ‘AJ’ in style.
Yet, despite making an impressive first defence of the IBF strap, the belt does not guarantee that there will always be demand to watch a former world champion in action, as shown by the return of another former IBF title-holder and fellow opponent of Joshua’s.
Charles Martin claimed the vacant IBF title back in 2016 without landing a significant punch when he defeated Vyacheslav Glazkov via third-round technical-knockout – the undefeated Ukrainian citing a knee injury for the defeat and never returning since.
Benefiting from Glazkov’s misfortunes, Martin attempted to make a difficult first defence of the title by travelling to the United Kingdom and facing Anthony Joshua at the O2 Arena. Instead, he suffered a second-round knockout loss to mark the end of the second-shortest reign of any heavyweight world champion in history.
However, Martin’s shortcomings against ‘AJ’ were not the end of his time on the big stage. ‘Prince’ Charles has appeared on the Garcia-Porter undercard at the Barclays Center in 2017 and scored a knockout victory over Gerald Washington on the Wilder-Fury II bill at the MGM Garden Arena in 2020.
Additionally, a spirited display in his most recent outing against highly-rated American prospect Jared Anderson has proved that the 38-year-old southpaw still has enough in the tank to be a gatekeeper in the division.
Nevertheless, it has now been announced that Martin will end a 16-month spell of inactivity at the 1,100 seated capacity Fox Theater in Redwood City, California – taking on 43-year-old Matthew McKinney, who has suffered early knockout defeats to Cassius Chaney and Chris Arreola within the last couple of years.
The event will take place on Saturday November 16th with tickets available to purchase from $63.00, although a $10 discount is on offer by use of promo code ‘Fight_Night’.
Boxing Social is now on WhatsApp! Join our channel by clicking here and getting all the latest boxing news direct to your phone.