Mason vs Noakes vacant title fight joins November Riyadh Season show

Abdullah Mason will get a chance to become boxing’s youngest active champion when he faces fellow unbeaten Sam Noakes later this year

Turki Alalshikh announced overnight that their Riyadh Season’s upcoming November show, which already features Brian Norman Jr vs Devin Haney and David Benavidez vs Anthony Yarde, will also see Abdullah Mason battle Sam Noakes for the vacant WBO lightweight title.

The sanctioning body ordered negotiations last month after former champion Keyshawn Davis nuked the scale ahead of a planned defense against Edwin De Los Santos.

This is just a flat-out excellent matchup, which sees Top Rank and Queensberry pit two of their top prospects against one another. Noakes (17-0, 15 KO) is the more proven of the pair and owns the best win thanks to his 2024 shutout of Yvan Mendy, but most observers view Mason (19-0, 17 KO) as a potential standard-bearer for the next generation at 135.

The burning question will be whether Mason has sufficiently approached his sky-high ceiling at the age of 21.