sport news MARTIN SAMUEL: Anthony Joshua's rematch with Oleksandr Usyk is a PROPER fight ... trends now

Sometimes you can believe the hype. Particularly when there is none.

Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk glowered beneath a large display promoting The Rage on the Red Sea, taking place on Saturday. It's not much of a tagline, no Rumble in the Jungle, or Thrilla in Manila, but the marketing department works with the brief it's given.

What's a copywriter to do, considering the location? The nerve-shredder in Jeddah? The wrecker not far from Mecca?

Anyway, this is a fight that defies empty bombast. Why? Because it's a fight. It's a proper fight that the public wants to see, and a match that needs to be made. It's not an empty contest, it's not part of a trilogy as the champion sidesteps a better, or worthier, opponent, it's certainly not easily called, either.

So, for once, nobody needed to hear trash talk or watch a faked confrontation after some heavy duty eye-balling for it to be interesting. There was no empty talk of fatality, no profanity or confected hatred. The protagonists could have sat at the top table, knitting. Indeed Usyk wore a traditional Cossack costume that suggested maybe he had.

If this was at Wembley, tickets would be like gold dust even with room for 90,000. It's only playing out in an 8,000 strong hall — with around 5,000 paying customers — because the biggest money for boxing promotions these days comes from the east.

Yet the fight needs no false inflation. What is riding on it for both men is immense. Eddie Hearn, reduced to acting as master of ceremonies given the bulk of the promotional investment is wholly Saudi Arabian, asked Usyk about the biggest fight of his career, but that is surely a question better addressed to Joshua.

He is the one clinging to hope of a legacy, he is the one who may be contemplating retirement if this ends in a second defeat.

Usyk's motivation is as great but very different. He wants to inspire a nation under siege, to ensure the Ukrainian anthem is heard around the world, according to his promoter, Alexander Krassyuk.

Any one of these incentives would be a sell, a marketable back story in a world obsessed with them. Yet the fact the fighters are well-matched, the fact this promises to be a technical and tactical battle, as well as an old-fashioned tear up, adds to its attraction.

So many times we believe we know what will happen in the ring; so many times we are not served the dish we want. This is different. So, when the fighters came face to face yesterday, neither had been primed with slurs or insults, nobody was under pressure to act as salesman. They spoke, respectfully, about their intentions in the ring and then, called upon to face off, stood staring until it got dull.

Joshua looked like an athlete of the west, toned and well built beneath his tailored blue shirt. Usyk looked like a character out of a Disney film, and not necessarily the good guy either. It's an intimidating rig, the Cossack

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