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Rotting skin is peeling off of Anthony Joshua’s face as he signs a blood contract with Eddie Hearn. Somewhere on the street outside, Deontay Wilder – relying on what little is left of his mind – careens a van around a corner before mowing down a zombie. In the passenger seat, promoter Frank Warren is hanging on for dear life; or he would be, if he was not already the embodiment of the living dead. Elsewhere in this post-apocalyptic, zombified town, Filip Hrgovic reaches into a glass and grabs his eyeball, before popping it back into his battered skull. Joseph Parker is staring into the distance, until suddenly he’s staring at you, having rotated his head 180 degrees atop his creaky spine. This, in case you were wondering, is the trailer for the Day of Reckoning boxing event.
On 23 December, the heavyweights above will compete in Saudi Arabia, all on one card and joined by Otto Wallin, Daniel Dubois, Jarrell Miller and more. On paper – and this event will print plenty of paper – it will be perhaps the most impressive concentration of boxing star power and talent ever on one night. In modern boxing, Joshua vs Wallin and Wilder vs Parker are main-event bouts, but their undercards would typically leave a lot to be desired. On 23 December, however, one of those main-event bouts will have to serve as the chief support, and the undercard will feature the likes of light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol and Jai Opetaia (who may still be a cruiserweight world champion come fight night, unless he is forced to vacate his title).
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And just as this impending gathering of boxers is unprecedented, the promotion has been, too. That is not only in the sense that bitter rivals Warren and Eddie Hearn were seen on stage together at the launch press conference for Day of Reckoning (the pair had never met until that day in November). The event poster depicts all of the biggest names from a fight card full of big names, sat around a table and staring up at the camera. It is an arresting visual, only outdone by this week’s zombie-themed trailer
The video is admittedly bizarre, but just as the press conference and poster showed how stupefying amounts of money can pierce fighters’ pride and allow them to gather on one stage and around one table, the trailer demonstrates how those same sums can convince the baddest men alive to sport prosthetics and make-up, engage in cartoonish scenes, and pretend that they are, well, very much unalive.
