World heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and former MMA heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou are set to fight on March 8 at the Kingdom Arena in Saudi Arabia as part of Riyadh Season, an annual state-funded entertainment and sports festival.

BigTime Creative Shop has created a knockout trailer to advertise the event for Dazn, the live and on-demand sports streaming platform. A mix of live action and animation, the format adopts the style of Street Fighter, the 8-bit arcade game released in the late 80s.

Directed by Roman Chassaing and produced by Academy Films, the ‘all-out brawl’ kicks off in New York in the early 90s (when the game became popular), where Joshua and Ngannou proceed to clash heads and fists so powerfully they send each other flying across continents.

While there are a few tired stereotypes featured within the ad, the execution and special effects of the fighters’ combat is fairly seamless, with The Mill taking care of post-production.

BigTime were behind the Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk promo, Ring of Fire, which launched in January (also part of Riyadh Season), as well as the trailer for the Day of Reckoning event last year, another Joshua fight.

Credits:

Client: Riyadh Season
Agency: BigTime Creative Shop
Director: Roman Chassaing
Production: Academy Films
Post-production: The Mill
Sound production: BMM Network