RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Badou Jack cemented his position as the rightful WBC cruiserweight champion by the smallest of margins against Noel Mikaeljan on Saturday night.

After 12 hard-fought and attritional rounds, there was very little to choose between the two returning 200lbers at ANB Arena.

Judge Nobuto Ikehara could not split them, returning a 114-114 scorecard, but when Pablo Gonzalez and Jose Manzur scored it 115-113 to Jack, there was finally a conclusion to this long-running saga.

There was a complicated route to this fight which started in February 2023, when Jack initially won the WBC cruiserweight title via a 12th-round stoppage of Ilunga Makubu. However, he was then made champion in recess as he plotted a move up to fight for the bridgerweight title.

The following November, Mikaeljan himself fought Makubu for the WBC belt vacated by Jack’s move. He did the business even quicker than Jack, stopping Makubu inside three in Miami.

Neither man has fought since those wins, but at their convention in Hamburg, Germany last December the WBC decided to reinstate Jack as their full champion and place Mikaeljan in recess, effectively switching the two.

Then just to add another fly to the ointment, once-beaten Canadian Ryan Rozicki was made mandatory challenger for Jack’s title by the WBC with their fight set for tonight in Riyadh. In a final twist, Rozicki pulled out through injury a month ago, opening the door for Mikaeljan and Jack to finally decide who is the "real" WBC champion.

Given they have been out for 41 months between them, it was no surprise that the opening two rounds of this chief support were uneventful. Mikaeljan finally landed a punch of note in the third when a right hand found the target, but Jack barely blinked.

Regardless of the lay-off this was 41-year-old Jack’s third straight fight in Saudi Arabia, with the two before that taking place in Dubai where he now lives permanently. He had therefore described this outing as "like a home match," but he was struggling to assume any advantage against Mikaeljan, who landed a pair of good left hooks midway through the fifth as the fight began to open up. With 20 seconds of the round left, Jack landed with a crisp right hand but took one himself moments before the bell.

Since their absence, the cruiserweight division has moved along at pace, with Ring Magazine king Jai Opetaia now the IBF champion while Gilberto Ramirez holds the WBA and WBO belts. Both men knew that victory here would almost certainly set them on a path towards an undisputed clash with one of those two, although it is unlikely either of them would be too worried about what they saw in the first half of this encounter.

Jack got through with a right hand with a minute left of the eighth but he failed to build on it while Mikaeljan was often landing jabs in bunches of four and five but not setting up his back hand. He then missed wildly with a hook and shipped a heavy left hook in return which seemed to hurt him right on the bell to end the eighth. But he responded with two big moments of his own in the ninth to re-establish his footing in the fight.

The attritional nature of the contest continued through the championship rounds in an untidy climax. Mikaeljan threatened to pull a dramatic finish out of the bag when a left hook landed with less than 30 seconds on the clock but Jack held firm.

Both men held their hands aloft, more in hope than expectation, as they awaited the result but it was Jack who got the nod by the smallest of margins possible in boxing.