There hasn’t been a card quite like the one that awaits on December 24.
Dubbed the ‘Day of Reckoning’, former world champs like Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker will feature in a star-studded event in Saudi Arabia.
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Even Australian cruiserweight sensation Jai Opetaia is on the card, although he won’t be defending his IBF world title against Ellis Zorro after he was forced to vacate it by the governing body.
But Opetaia isn’t the only Australian on the card.
Joining him is little-known heavyweight Mark de Mori who fights out of Perth having lived in Croatia for ten years.
De Mori takes on Filip Hrgovic, a man who is set to take on the winner between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk when the two superstars collide for the undisputed heavyweight crown.
A quick glance at De Mori’s record would leave many impressed.
Of his 41 wins, 36 have come via KO/TKO and has just two losses to his name.
However, De Mori is 41 years of age and his recent opponents haven’t exactly been of much note.
In De Mori’s last 11 fights, the collective record of his rivals in their last six fights going into the bout read a staggering 11-49.
Unsurprisingly the 41-year-old from Perth finished all but one of his rivals in that stretch which goes as far back as October 2017.
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Having set himself up in Croatia during that time De Mori fought in several obscure locations across Europe, namely Slovenia, Bosnia, Austria, Germany and Hungary.
But none more bizarre than his bout against Laszlo Toth when the pair collided inside an Audi dealership in Wuppertal, a city in Germany with a population of just over 350,000.
Prior to that run, De Mori was stopped by English legend David Haye in the first round when the two met in January 2016 in what was the Aussie’s most high-profile bout to date.
So how on earth did De Mori get the chance to face Hrgovic, a man who is one fight away from fighting for the undisputed heavyweight crown?
“My manager called me, he said, ‘What’s the most amount of money you’d need to fight anyone in the world,’” De Morti told Boxing Social.
“I said (an amount), he said, ‘I’ll get you more.’ I said, ‘OK’.
“He said, ‘Do you want to know who you’re fighting?’ I said, ‘Probably.’
“They told me and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
The gargantuan scale of the task awaiting De Mori is reflected in the betting odds for the fight.
According to Australian bookmaker Sportsbet, the Western Australian is a whopping $19 outsider as Hrgovic is the heavy favourite at $1.02 to win and $1.09 to finish the Aussie.
De Mori knows the “script” is for him to get pummeled by his heavily-fancied Croatian rival, but fighting lesser-known opponents forever wouldn’t deliver him opportunities anywhere near as big as this.
“I’d love to be the favourite, but they’re not paying me to do that,” De Mori said.
“They’re paying me as the underdog. People haven’t seen me on the big stage for a long time. I haven’t been on the big stage for a long time.
“When they called me up, I said, ‘Why not.’ Nobody expects anything from me. It’s all about Hrgovic taking a tune-up until he gets the Fury-Usyk winner.
“Sure, that’s the script. Whatever. It just doesn’t bother me. At 41, I can’t sit back fighting journeymen expecting something big to happen.”
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If — and it’s a very big if — De Mori secures the upset of a lifetime against Hrgovic, it would rocket him into title contention against either Fury or Usyk.
However, an experience with ‘The Gypsy King’ left the Aussie with a brutal reminder of just how different the levels at the top are and believed a rematch against Hrgovic would be the likelier scenario.
“Honestly, I don’t think if I caught Hrgovic that anyone wants to see me fight the Fury-Usyk winner,” De Mori said.
“That’s just being realistic and that’s fine. So we’d probably do a rematch.
“I sparred Fury once and it was during those rounds I realised I’d never be world champion, that’s how much trouble I had landing on him.”
All signs point towards an early night for all involved when De Mori steps in the ring against Hrgovic.
The Aussie even said it himself that the script has been all but finalised for the fight.
But heavyweight boxing means De Mori is a puncher’s chance of causing one of the largest upsets seen in recent history.
And there isn’t a better stage to do it on than the biggest card in years.
