Last week, 128 fighters and their teams descended upon Riyadh for the inaugural WBC Boxing Grand Prix. The tournament was reportedly the dream of the late Jose Sulaiman, the founder of the WBC, and was carried out by his son Mauricio in conjunction with Turki Alalshikh and Riyadh Season. It was an audacious undertaking the likes of which haven’t been seen in the sport. The logistics of putting together 64 fights in four weight divisions over four days and broadcasting them globally alone is daunting enough, but the tournament also dared to introduce forward-thinking practices that either haven’t been, or have only sparingly been utilized in the past in an effort to make fights more exciting and perhaps more importantly, more fair.

In terms of the talent pool, this was boxing’s version of the NFL or NHL hockey scouting combine in some respects. All of the fighters selected to take part in the tournament were, with few exceptions, under the age of 26 and not yet affiliated with what the industry understands to be a major promoter.

What transpired over the first round of the tournament was a lens into the future of the sport from both a talent and structural perspective, and looking into it produced a bright picture of what could be ahead.

Here are five things we learned from the opening round:

There’s often the blanket criticism hurled towards modern boxers that they are broadly risk averse. It’s understandable why someone might come to that conclusion when watching the typical trajectory that a notable prospect tends to take during their ascent, a collection of carefully curated bouts against opponents their handlers selected with the intention of helping them learn a thing or two, but definitely not beat them. The fighters themselves are privy to this process, but as this is showbiz at the end of the day and ticket sales and viewership matter—especially in circumstances when prospects’ purses are heavily supplemented by ticket sale percentages—the boxers have to suggest these bouts are 50/50 matchups rather than showcase outings. When those fights so commonly turn out to be blowouts, one can understand why members of the fight public who are not proponents of slow development become jaded and distrustful over time.

The reality is that many, if not most young fighters, are chomping at the bit for real competition and to speed up their ascent in the sport. The WBC Grand Prix illustrated that quite well. Nearly eleven dozen fighters, many of whom were undefeated, accepted the offer to face another prospect.

But it’s the other factors at play that further drive the point home. Participants didn’t know who they would be fighting until two days prior, and in the cases where last-minute replacements needed to be found, even later than that. Essentially, each fighter said “yes” to fighting any one of 31 other men in their division, fields that included Olympians, national amateur champions, knockout artists, southpaws and anything else one might think about wanting to avoid in the formative stages of their careers.

It's true that there was a financial incentive—many fighters received career-high paydays for their opening round bouts, with increasing rewards for each additional round. However, it came at the risk, in many cases, of their coveted undefeated record. Which brings us to the next point…

By the end of the week, 64 prospects lost a fight. Precisely because so many of them lost, losses weren’t the topic of discussion in Riyadh after the bouts. They were normalized and not considered an immediate dismissal or “exposure” of the fighter in question.

In fact, some fighters even saw their stock rise in a losing effort. Take for example Crisalito Beltran, who lost a bloody slugfest against Alan David Crenz, who many industry insiders had their eyes on heading into the tournament. Beltran was dropped in the second round, but rallied back to shatter Crenz’s nose and drag him into a memorable six-round brawl. Beltran benefitted from that effort far more than he would have by scoring six knockout victories over journeymen, and even now at 8-1 is sure to get some calls from managers and promoters.

Or, how about the 6’8” Bosnian heavyweight Dylan Rajic, who lost his professional debut—usually the trigger to dismiss a fighter wholesale—but did so against a Ukrainian national amateur champion in the now 10-0 Vitaly Stalchenko? Rajic made Stalchenko’s life hell for six rounds, and with a towering frame that fills out at close to 300 pounds, could compel someone to take a flier on him, and most certainly will get him booked to mimic one of the heavyweight division’s giants du jour in a big name’s training camp.

Rajic is also an example of this point, one of three heavyweights from Bosnia and Herzegovina that competed on Day Four. His countrymen Alija Mesic and Ahmed Krnjic eached scored knockout victories in their first round matchups, further bringing attention to the boxing scene of a country that has yet to produce a world champion.

The tournament is an opportunity for fighters from countries that do not get the spotlight shone on them all that often by the global boxing audience. It provided a platform for Jordan’s Mohammad Issa, who won over the Saudi audience with his knockout victory over Telieke Ahan. It did the same for Finland’s Hajji Muhis, who went from in his words “having nothing” days prior, to having several thousand dollars in his account and a career-altering win, as he described in a heartwarming post-fight interview with Claudia Trejos.

Fighters like these too often get trapped on their own national circuit where funding is minimal, building up records that get described as “manufactured” but are often just a product of circumstance. They fight the available competition nationally with the resources available, and can either see their careers fizzle out, or get an opportunity on the road in a less than advantageous situation before being dismissed. The Grand Prix allowed many fighters in that situation to be on an even playing field, and lo and behold, many of them thrived.

The Grand Prix also notably utilizes instant replay to verify every call of consequence, be it a knockdown or a cut. Following the round in which the call in question occurs, WBC officials review footage of the incident and either confirm or overturn the call. This is done in conjunction with the television production, in this case DAZN, which feeds the WBC the footage it requests to evaluate in between rounds.

The reviews were even done in situations in which the call in question no longer affected the outcome of the fight. Knockdowns were reviewed after a fighter went on to get legitimately knocked out, for example. While in the moment this might have seemed redundant to the television viewer, there is merit in handling it this way. As Sulaiman stated prior to the tournament, it’s also a way to document the performance of referees, to perhaps bring further accountability and evaluation for the performance of said officials. Too often in boxing we’ve had to concede things like, “well at least the right guy won anyway,” in a fight with controversial scorecards in which the justifiable winner prevailed despite the questionable judging. Rightful winners shouldn’t have to win in spite of judging, and the same can be said for refereeing.

There have been plenty of incidents of calls that everyone from the fighters to the viewing audience knows to be wrong affecting the outcome of a fight without anyone being able to do anything about it. In the first round of the tournament alone, several calls were overturned nearly moments afterwards, correcting the course and ensuring fairness in the contest.

The caveat, of course, is that implementing this particular system of instant replay, one that does not disrupt the flow of the fight, requires the existence of and cooperation with a well-equipped broadcast outlet. It is true that not all fights globally have the luxury of a DAZN, ESPN or Prime-level production capable of producing slow motion replays from several angles within seconds, but with very few exceptions, most high-level fights and nearly all world title fights do. When resources are available, it would seem that this is a no-brainer implementation moving forward.

The merits and dangers of open scoring have long been debating in boxing, with public consensus seeming to default to the primary concern that it could a) Lead to a fighter learning they are ahead and running out the clock, or b) A fighter learns they are woefully behind and bows out of the contest.

The counter to those views has always been that a fighter so obviously ahead could fight negatively down the stretch whether they hear the scores or not, but also, if the fighter that is behind conclusively knows that to be the case, they may ramp up their effort accordingly (as seen in O’Shaquie Foster’s win over Rocky Hernandez). There’s also the empathetic view that if a fighter is being so badly beaten that winning on the scorecards is an impossibility and they see no path to victory, that throwing in the towel isn’t a “bad” thing to do, and that they don’t owe it to anyone to fruitlessly take punishment. In other words, open scoring could be seen as pro-fighter safety.

The first four days of the Grand Prix were a good case study on what the sport would look like if open scoring were the norm. While there weren’t any examples of fighters explicitly spoiling and giving rounds away knowing they were way up on the cards, there were examples of fighters—like the aforementioned Muhis—making changes as a result of the scores they were relayed. The information a fighter and their corner receives through the scoring isn’t just whether they’re up or down, it’s also a clue into what each judge is appreciating. For example, if you’re boxing off the back foot and one judge has you up two rounds to nothing and the other two have you down, you can make an educated guess that what you’re doing either isn’t as effective as you think or isn’t being appreciated the way you’d hoped, and you have the opportunity to change course.

It allows fighters to be aware of the scoreboard, something every other sport that involves person-on-person physicality enjoys.

One of the things preventing against fighters “coasting” was also the Enhanced Scoring System being used by the WBC, which asks judges to also check a box determining whether the round was close, moderate, decisive or extremely decisive. These choices also have numerical value that come into play in the case of a fight being declared a draw. In practice, this means that in the event of an even fight, the fighter who won their rounds by a wider margin will win the fight. Using the example of Muhis, his trainer Martin Bowers reminded him of that system in between rounds, telling him that he had to try to show the judges just a little bit more even in rounds he was winning.

This type of system, in lieu of an overtime round, as Overtime Boxing (OTX) utilizes, is necessary in a tournament format in order to ensure a winner in each bout. It doesn’t remove subjectivity, as even the margin of victory is up to the interpretation of the judges, but it is certainly a step in the direction of fairness.