Riyadh Season WBC Boxing Grand Prix - Tournament Details, Preview, Round By Round & Results!

Quarterfinals tomorrow @ Cool Arena. Simulcast on DAZN and YouTube.

Here is the remaining field:

FEATHERWEIGHT

• Yusuf Adisa Adeniji (Nigeria, 16-0) vs. Yoni Diego Lorenzo Sebastian "Titi" Valverdé López (France, 15-0)
  
  
• Muhamet "The Robot" Qamili (Italy, 16-0) vs. Troy Aqealies Tichj "The Bank" Nash (USA, 5-0)
  
  
• Iman Lee (USA, 14-0) vs. Bekizizwe "Dr. Sleep" Maitse (South Africa, 8-1)
  
  
• Ayubkhon Jamoliddin Bakhtiyorov (Uzbekistan, 8-0) vs. Brandon "Dog" Mejia Mosqueda (Mexico, 10-0)

SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT

• Sanatali Toltayev (Kazakhstan, 4-0) vs. Danylo Alexandrovich Lozan (Ukraine, 14-0)
  
  
• Misael "Pichon" Cabrera Urías (Mexico, 17-2-1) vs. Mujibillo Dilmurodjon Ogli Tursunov (Uzbekistan, 7-0)
  
  
• Fiorenzo Priolo (Italy, 11-0) vs. Ntethelelo Eric Nkosi (South Africa, 9-2)
  
  
• Carlos Alfonso Utria López (Colombia, 11-0) vs. Spencer Wilcox (Canada, 12-0)

MIDDLEWEIGHT

• Dmytro Rybalko (Ukraine, 5-0-1) vs. Derek "Slick" Pomerleau (Canada, 13-0)
  
  
• Ephrem Bariko (France, 12-0) vs. Jean Carlos Sinisterra Palacios (Colombia, 12-1)
  
  
• Dylan "The Beaudesert Storm" Biggs (Australia, 15-1) vs. Pyotr Alexandrovich Frolov (Ukraine, 12-1)
  
  
• Emiliano "Emy Popeye" Aguillón Castro (Mexico, 13-0-1) vs. Lancelot "The Last Knight" Proton de la Chapelle (France, 17-1-1)

HEAVYWEIGHT

• Keaton Gomes (South Africa, 12-3) vs. Devon Dashawn Young (USA, 9-0)
  
  
• Ahmed "Bosnian Steel" Krnjić (Bosnia & Herzegovina, 5-0) vs. Tsotne Badrievich Rogava (Ukraine, 12-0)
  
  
• Piotr Łącz (Poland, 14-0) vs. Kevin Christopher Ramírez (Argentina, 10-0-1)
  
  
• Dante Darnell Stone (USA, 20-1) vs. Youness Baalla (Morocco, 2-1-1)
  ** Baalla is substituting for Uzbek southpaw Lazizbek Hasanjon Ugli Mullojonov, who defeated him in the Round of 16 but is banned due to a positive test for a PED.

Here was my RBR of the Round of 16 in July:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/dazn-holy-dorgbetor-vs-muhamet-qamili-marko-milun-vs-piotr-Łącz-rbr.738068/

...and @dcarlota's coverage of the 1st stage in April:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/the-riyadh-season-wbc-boxing-grand-prix.735618/

 

It's actually kind of for the best in terms of parity that Mullojonov got himself kicked out. He was sort of a ringer and was the obvious heavy favorite (pardon the pun) to blast through everyone at HW.

 

Interestingly, the way the brackets are set up, there are multiple possible iterations of the finals where it could be competitors from the same country vying for the José Sulaimán Trophy.

You could have two Americans in the finals at either featherweight or heavyweight, and two Frenchmen or two Mexicans at middleweight.

 

Nations represented in the QF:

1. USA - 4 boxers
   Ukraine - 4 boxers
   
   
2. France - 3 boxers
   Mexico - 3 boxers
   South Africa - 3 boxers
   
   
3. Italy - 2 boxers
   Colombia - 2 boxers
   Canada - 2 boxers
   Uzbekistan - 2 boxers
   
   
4. Nigeria - 1 boxer
   Morocco - 1 boxer
   Bosnia & Herzegovina - 1 boxer
   Poland - 1 boxer
   Argentina - 1 boxer
   Australia - 1 boxer
   Kazakhstan - 1 boxer
   
   

 

I think it hasn't been promoted that well, and lots of people may have felt overwhelmed and put off when it was over a hundred men in the field (4 divisions = 128 combatants in the 1st stage or "Round of 32") - most of whom are international prospects yet to really make a name for themselves and so largely unfamiliar to even diehard fans.

Now that it's narrowing though, it really is getting juicy.

The four Sulaimán Trophy winners should emerge from this with a lot of momentum, name recognition, and probably world rankings.

 

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Looks like nobody had a crack at this while I was asleep last night / out and about doing errands today...so I'll do a delayed RBR for some of it. No promises on a full 9 hours (all 16 six-round bouts) worth, though. Might cherry-pick a bit and just do the ones that interest me the most.

 

Okay so the first 39 minutes is just dead air waiting for the stream to start, then 4 minutes of DAZN boxing commercials. Feel like they could have just edited that out for the replay and started with Claudia Trejo's introduction of the Grand Prix at 43:40.

 

Barak Bess is trying so hard not to betray how badly he wants Claudia with his faux nonchalant body language.

 

Alright, just crunched the numbers and 16 x 6 = 96 rounds of boxing, even if everything goes the distance that's 96 x 4 minutes (including round breaks), so fast-forwarding through ring walks and between fight banter that's "only" about six hours and twenty minutes for the full shebang. That's still quite an undertaking. We'll see how the afternoon goes...

 

For the uninitiated, this is a tournament intended to be sort of like an mini-Olympics for professional prospects from around the globe. The rules are you have to be at most 26 years old and have fought at most 20 bouts at the start of the Grand Prix.

Barak says there's no shame in losing in this format, and everyone still present here in the quarterfinals is going to have promoters lining up to put them on speed-dial no matter the outcomes from here out.

 

Keaton Gomes (South Africa, 12-3) vs. Devon Dashawn Young (USA, 9-0), 6 rounds @ heavyweight

 

Experienced referee Béla Flórián of Hungary (has officiated over eleven hundred matches as either judge or ref) on assignment as the third man in the ring.