For 15 years, Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn have dominated the British boxing landscape, during which time the sport has established itself as one of the most prominent in the region.

For 15 years, Warren and Hearn did not speak face to face. This meant that many of the best possible fights in the UK fell through, just like their counterparts in the States, where promoters rarely do business with each other.

The conflict between Warren, 72, and Hearn, 44, finally ended last November.

Then Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, gathered the pair to meet in London as part of the Day of Reckoning press conference – an event attended by fighters linked to both promoters.

Hearn said Alalshikh was “quite surprised” by the reaction to his relationship with Warren. It’s also good business. “We are a professional sport,” Warren told ESPN on Tuesday, along with Hearn. “And so we discovered that our people want to make as much money as possible, and we want to make money.”

Now that Warren and Hearn are no longer at loggerheads, the rivals will clash on Saturday in Riyad in a unique team concept created by Alalshikh that will pit Warren’s five Queensberry Promotions boxers against five selected by Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing in an event at called “5 on 5”.

“It’s really weird,” Hearn told ESPN, referring to the duo’s long-running radio silence. “And honestly, without His Excellency [Alalshikh] we got involved and without this changing landscape we would never be talking. Because if you don’t do it after 15 years, you just won’t do it.

“We’re both pretty stubborn,” Hearn added. “It’s gotten to the point where this is what it is, we’re not working together. We have our own platforms, our fighters. Good luck. And I think I speak for both of them: it’s the best thing we’ve ever done, it’s definitely the most excited and invigorated I’ve been in my career in a long time.

For boxing fans, these words are probably surreal yet encouraging. Saturday’s lineup of fights is compelling even without the stakes of the team concept.

One point will be awarded for each decision victory, two points for a KO/TKO victory and double points for team captains: Deontay Wilder, who signed with Matchroom ahead of the heavyweight main event against Zhilei Zhang, and Hamzah Sheeraz, who will represent Queensberry in a middleweight fight against Austin “Ammo” Williams. The winning promoter will take home $3 million.

“Boxing has always been an individual sport, and now we play five-on-five. It’s like a team concept introduced to boxing for the first time,” Zhang, 41, told ESPN in remarks translated from Chinese. “I like the idea, I like what they are doing. I believe that everyone on our team trains very challenging with respect. And I think scoring points for the team is definitely a good thing.”

Six other competitors will want to score points for their promoter. Queensberry’s Daniel Dubois meets Filip Hrgovic, with the winner set to fight Anthony Joshua on September 20 at London’s Wembley Stadium as part of the Riyad event of the season. All five heavyweights are in the top 10 in the ESPN rankings. Raymond Ford (an American promoted by Hearn) defends his WBA featherweight title against Nick Ball in a fight that could easily be a standalone main event.

The biggest underdog in the top three fights is Dubois at +210, per ESPN BET, illustrating the competitive nature of the situation.

Opening fight: Willy Hutchinson – Craig Richards in the lightweight heavyweight division.

The series was headlined by Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed lightweight championship before Beterbiev suffered a knee injury. Bivol will still fight on the card, defending his WBA lightweight heavyweight title against recently replaced Malik Zinad.

While there’s a lot at stake between the former bitter enemies – both bragging rights and prize money – there’s even more on the line for the fighters, especially Zhang and Wilder. Both heavyweights are reeling from losses to Joseph Parker in Riyad.

“Deontay didn’t look good last time, so he needs to rehabilitate himself and play Gigantic Bang” [Zhang] he will want to get back into the fight,” Warren said. “He took Parker to the floor twice and he was doing quite well in the fight until the final stages. For me, the loser of this fight doesn’t have a lot of places to go to know what’s on the line. That’s why it’s going to be such a close fight.”

And perhaps this, more than anything else, represents Alalshikh’s interest in sports – the latest example of which is Saturday’s card. In the way other boxing power brokers tend to operate, Wilder would likely languish for over a year after his loss to Parker before returning to fight a low-level fighter.

This is the path Wilder took after his November defeat to Tyson Fury, which was named Fight of the Year 2021 by ESPN (along with KO of the Year). Wilder returned to fighting 11 months later after knocking out journeyman Robert Helenius in the first round.

The American, now 38, did not fight for another 13 months and when he did, he was a shell of his former self after a destitute defeat to Parker last December. According to ESPN BET, Wilder entered the ring as a -700 favorite. Zhang was also the favorite to defeat Parker when they fought on March 8; it didn’t matter. Now both huge men have a chance to quickly erase the stink of defeat and prepare for another marquee fight.

“It puts Wilder back on the pitch,” Hearn said. “If he knocks out Zhang, everyone will be calling for him to fight huge fights again.… These guys know it on paper: if you lose, you will probably be a forgotten man in His Excellency’s eyes because of the brutality. You’ll win and you’ll win huge and he’ll say, “I want him back.” So they fight for that too.”

Alalshikh is scheduled for an Aug. 3 fight between Wilder and rising contender Jared Anderson on the loaded Terence Crawford-Israil Madrimov Riyadh Season card in Los Angeles, but the former heavyweight champion needs to perform well against Zhang, even in defeat. The long-awaited fight with Joshua is also on the table. Wilder was supposed to meet Joshua on March 8, but the defeat to Parker thwarted their plans.

“I told Wilder: I’m ready to give my all [the Joshua fight] but it depends on his performance against Zhang,” Alalshikh told ESPN in April. “If he doesn’t take care of himself, I’m not responsible. I’m giving him two chances, but I can’t give him a third.”

This could be just the beginning of team boxing. At the lower level, this has happened before: there was the semi-professional World Series of Boxing, which once featured top amateurs such as heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. There is also a Team Combat League, which is currently dynamic, but does not have many top-level players.

“The two promoters involved are an integral part of the boxing industry and will play a key role in the recent boxing project,” Alalshikh told ESPN on Thursday. “The promoters are implementing this vision based on their past experience with us and will continue to work with us to bring boxing back. Our next phase includes competitions featuring our partners, US promoters versus UK promoters. This is an event we are planning and I believe the fans will welcome it.”

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has already revolutionized the game of golf with the LIV Golf team tour, pouring huge funds into the sport, and boxing could see more of the same. Not boxers fighting together, of course, but in a Ryder Cup-like format where boxers represent their country or promotion.

“It energizes everyone,” Warren said. “There’s a lot of us and we both really want to win it. It captured everyone’s imagination. It was fantastic under His Excellency’s patronage that we were actually able to come together and bang heads and say, “don’t screw this up.”

“The finances available for the Riyadh season have completely changed the landscape,” he added. “But now it is noticeable all over the world. … It’s a really great time for boxing, it’s a great time for us and we have to come to terms with it because we would be complete morons if we messed it up.”