With much of the focus on Martin Bakole stepping in for Daniel Dubois to fight Joseph Parker, another very late replacement opponent faces a huge challenge earlier on Saturday night’s boxing blockbuster in Riyadh as Josh Padley meets Shakur Stevenson.
Briton Padley only got the call late on Tuesday night to fly out to Saudi Arabia to be part of one of the biggest shows in the sport’s history, replacing Floyd Schofield. Schofield had been due to challenge fellow undefeated American Stevenson for the WBC lightweight world title he has held since outpointing Edwin De Los Santos in November 2023 before retaining it against Artem Harutyunyan in New Jersey last summer.
However, Golden Boy fighter Schofield was taken ill earlier this week and hospitalised for a period before being discharged and deemed unable to fight by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBoC). Promoters scrambled to find a quick replacement at just four days’ notice to keep Stevenson on the bill, with the ultra-talented three-weight world champion having been scheduled to defend his belt against Wales’ two-time former super-featherweight champion Joe Cordina on the undercard of the first Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed fight card back in October, only for the bout - the first on his new Matchroom deal - to be cancelled after he suffered a hand injury in training that required surgery.
WBO Inter-Continental super-featherweight champion Moussa Gholam of Morocco was believed to be a potential contender to replace Schofield, though it was Padley who got the call to be thrust into the biggest night of his career so far by a long way. Matchroom’s Padley is an unbeaten 15-0 fighter (with four knockouts) hailing from the village of Armthorpe in Doncaster in South Yorkshire, who alongside his boxing career also works as an electrician.
Indeed, the 29-year-old had been “crawling through a roof installing solar panels” before getting the call to jet out to Saudi on Tuesday. Padley has mostly fought in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lancashire since making his professional debut with a points win over Jamie Quinn in Worksop in 2019, notching up three straight stoppage victories against Clayton Bricknell, Lydon Chircop and Connor Lee Doherty before producing unquestionably the best win of his career to date in September on the early undercard of Dubois’ dominant win over Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium.
‘Paddy’ was excellent as he produced a big upset against Portsmouth’s Mark Chamberlain, who dropped a unanimous decision after an entertaining 10-round battle to suffer his first professional defeat. That was quite the statement against one of Britain’s top lightweights who had his eye on moving closer to a world title shot of his own and certainly won’t have gone unnoticed by Turki Alalshikh, who was said to regard Chamberlain as one of his favourite fighters.
But Padley will know that Saturday night’s challenge is on another level altogether as he faces an unbeaten superstar southpaw who has won world titles at featherweight, super-featherweight and lightweight en route to amassing a 22-0 professional record with 10 knockouts after winning a silver medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
A staple of most people’s pound-for-pound list of the best active fighters in recent years, Stevenson will be a massive odds-on favourite to comfortably take care of business against Padley and move on to larger challenges. There looked to be a healthy respect between both men in the build-up to fight night, though tempers frayed a little during an eventful weigh-in as each came in around the 134lb mark and a little pushing and shoving ensued as they jostled for the limelight in front of the cameras.
