What to Know
- The final Zuffa Boxing card of the 2026 calendar takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning.
- Put the coffee on. Zuffa Boxing 13 prelim fights start at 7:15 a.m. ET/4:15 a.m. PT, with the three-fight main card at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT on Paramount Plus in the U.S., and Sky Sports in the UK.
- Middleweight champion Carlos Adames returns to the ring in a contract weight fight at 165 pounds against Gerome Warburton, while Andrew Maloney and Bruno Serace round out the main lineup.
It needs to be asked. If a Zuffa Boxing card takes place in Saudi Arabia when most American boxing fans have barely started their mornings, does Dana White actually care?
The first Zuffa Boxing card in Saudi Arabia is set for The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the broadcast beginning in the U.S. on Paramount+ at 7:15 a.m. ET / 4:15 a.m. PT.
American boxing fans are more than willing to set their alarms for great cards in the middle of the night. Many of the hardcore will gladly wake up in Southern California at 3 a.m. to watch a Naoya Inoue fight.
But will they tune in to see an underwhelming lineup featuring a world champion returning after a long absence at a catchweight against lesser competition?
What is especially telling is that Zuffa Boxing CEO Dana White won’t be within thousands of miles of Riyadh. He’ll be heading up fight week in preparation for UFC 334 in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
But White is expecting the athletes, Zuffa Boxing personnel, and production teams to travel to Saudi Arabia, where there remain significant safety concerns due to unrest and conflict in the Middle East involving attacks by Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia.
NY Fights will at least perform its due diligence to outline the details for fans here.
Carlos Adames Returns, But Isn’t Bringing His Belt
WBC World Middleweight champion Carlos Adames of the Dominican Republic (25-1-1, 18 KOs) in his first fight under the Zuffa banner after signing what is reported to be a significant contract.
But his first fight won’t be a title defense. Instead, Adames and opponent Gerome Warburton of Wales (18-2-2, 2 KOs) will fight at a 165-pound catchweight, five pounds above the middleweight limit.
Adames is coming off a title defense in March, a strong performance against American Austin “Ammo” Williams. It’s curious why Adames couldn’t have put in some training time to make the weight limit and put some skin in the game. In a way, it’s a test of whether belts matter. Dana White claims they don’t.
Jason Moloney Featured in Bantamweight Co-Main
In the co-main, former world champion Jason Moloney of Australia (29-4, 20 KOs) will return against Andres Teran of Mexico (19-2, 14 KOs). No belt at stake here in the ten-round bantamweight fight. Moloney is a soldier who’s taken on top talent in his career, but at age 35, he is well past his prime.
In the opener on the main card, Bruno Serace of France (26-1-2, 5 KOs) will face super middleweight Kamil Bednarek of Poland (17-0, 10 KOs) in a ten-round bout.
Serace is still best known for a shocking knockout upset over Jaime Munguia in December 2024 in what was supposed to be a homecoming fight in Tijuana. Munguia regrouped and handled Serace in the rematch without any issues. Bednarek has fought all but two of his previous bouts in Poland against no recognizable opponents, and two club-level fights in the U.S.
We post the full nine-fight card lineup for you here.
Eddie Hearn Says What Many Are Thinking
In no surprise, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn took his shots at his rival while prepping this weekend’s card in Carson, California.
“Mr. Dana White said, ‘judge me at the end of the year.’ Now he’s saying, ‘judge me after three to five years.’ Well, fucking hell!” exclaimed Hearn.
“They’ve spent so much money. If you’re an actual shareholder in that business, you’re looking at the boxing business right now, saying, ‘What the fuck is that?’ Show me the P and L (profit and loss) for the boxing business. If you’re Paramount, you’ve got to be asking, ‘What the fuck are we paying for?’
“They’re stubborn. They’ve got massive egos … The UFC business is going to get affected, so he’s going to have a deteriorating UFC boxing business, and he’s going to have a boxing business that doesn’t really exist. If I was running TKO, I’d say, ‘Guys, are we all right here?’ Because, let’s be honest, it ain’t been a good couple of months,” said Hearn.
Obstacles Facing the Zuffa Boxing Future
As the Saudi Public Investment Fund pulls back its investment in sports, including the recent shuttering of LIV Golf, the long-term future of Zuffa Boxing must be questioned.
The push to revise American federal law regarding boxing may stall entirely because of the overwhelming “blue wave” of Democrats newly elected to Congress, and the Republican Party’s reluctance to do much legislative business in the few remaining days before a new Congress is sworn in early January.
Significant legislation proposed to reform American college sports, championed by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has fizzled out, which had far greater visibility.
And with the utter meltdown on Friday of the U.S. air traffic control system and political attention turned toward the disaster, Zuffa Boxing may need to make a go of its business on the existing playing field. Watch this space.
Gayle Falkenthal is an award-winning boxing journalist with more than four dozen awards for both written and video coverage from the Boxing Writers Association of America, Society of Professional Journalists, and San Diego Press Club, where she is the past president. She is the only woman journalist who is a full voting member of the BWAA. She is the Boxing Editor for NY Fights based in San Diego, California.
