Riyadh Season Turns a Boxing Rematch Into a Surreal Comedy
Riyadh Season's "Obsession" is a surreal comedy film created by BigTime Creative Shop in December 2024 to promote the Oleksandr Usyk versus Tyson Fury boxing rematch, held on 21 December 2024 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, blending humour and mutual fixation to position the event as a global cultural moment.
The film, formally subtitled "Obsession – Usyk 2 Fury Reignited," depicts each fighter haunted by the other in escalating absurdist vignettes. Fury sees Usyk's face replacing the people around him in everyday life; Usyk encounters Fury's likeness in increasingly unexpected places, including on a sausage. The creative conceit borrows from the psychological language of romantic obsession and applies it to the primal intensity of championship boxing, generating both laughs and genuine anticipation. A reworked version of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" drives the film's emotional and tonal engine, as noted by campaignme.com and selfstorming.com.
The campaign was commissioned by Riyadh Season, the General Entertainment Authority's flagship cultural and entertainment programme in Saudi Arabia, which has spent several years positioning the Kingdom as a destination for marquee global sports events. "Obsession" represents the second major boxing film BigTime Creative Shop has produced for Riyadh Season, following "Day of Reckoning" in 2023, and extends the agency's strategy of using cinematic storytelling to internationalise the Riyadh brand. The single film asset was released in December 2024 and earned a Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100.
Riyadh Season operates within a fiercely competitive global sports entertainment landscape. Promoters such as Top Rank and Matchroom Boxing have long used conventional hype-driven trailers to market championship fights, relying on slow-motion punch footage, dramatic voiceover, and fighter trash talk. BigTime Creative Shop chose the opposite register for "Obsession," deploying surreal comedy to differentiate the Usyk–Fury rematch and signal that Riyadh Season is a cultural entity, not merely a venue provider. As reported by campaignme.com, the agency has positioned Riyadh Season's sports properties as global entertainment events that extend beyond the ring.
The strategic insight is grounded in the fighters themselves. By late 2024, both Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury had become figures whose personalities exceeded their athletic identities. Fury's theatrical showmanship and Usyk's quiet intensity offered rich comic contrast, and "Obsession" exploits that contrast without diminishing either man's competitive stature. The film's humour serves the brand's internationalisation objective: by making the campaign broadly entertaining rather than narrowly sports-centric, it reaches audiences in Saudi Arabia and across global markets who might not follow boxing closely but will share a well-crafted comedy film.
The global sports advertising market was valued at $48.7 billion in 2024, according to marketintelo.com. In Saudi Arabia, Riyadh Season sits at the intersection of that market and the Kingdom's Vision 2030 entertainment investment strategy, competing for international attention against established sports entertainment markets in the United Kingdom and the United States. "Day of Reckoning" in 2023 established the cinematic playbook; "Obsession" refined it toward comedy, reflecting a maturing creative relationship between BigTime Creative Shop and the General Entertainment Authority.
Directing duo Megaforce helmed "Obsession" for production company Riff Raff Films, bringing their signature approach to surreal visual comedy to the Saudi Arabia-commissioned project, as documented by selfstorming.com and campaignme.com. Megaforce, known internationally for their work with major brands and music video artists, constructed each vignette with precise comic timing, ensuring the absurdist scenarios — a fighter's face appearing on strangers, on food, on the everyday fabric of life — read as visually coherent rather than arbitrary.
The creative direction was led by Chief Creative Officer Rayyan Aoun and Creative Director Saymon Medeiros at BigTime Creative Shop, with art direction by Gustavo Bilesimo and Bruno Freitas, per records at campaignme.com. Executive producer Tracey Cooper and producers Kate Brady and Sean Costelloe oversaw production logistics for Riff Raff Films, according to campaignme.com. Agency producer Inas Nagy managed production from the agency side. Senior Business Director Ziad Chehab and Social Media Director Nael Girgis completed the core team, with BigTime Creative Shop CEO Mohammed Sehly providing overall leadership, as cited by campaignme.com.
The decision to score the film with a reworked version of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" is among the campaign's most discussed creative choices, referenced by selfstorming.com and adsoftheworld.com. The song's title is the literal thesis of the film — each fighter cannot escape the other — and its pop familiarity gives the spot an immediate tonal cue that bypasses the need for exposition. The production balances two globally recognisable athletes and a well-known catalogue track without allowing any single element to overwhelm the comedy, a craft achievement the Cannes Lions Film Craft jury recognised with two Bronze Lions in 2025.
"Obsession" earned measurable recognition across the industry's most credible award bodies. At Cannes Lions 2025, the campaign won a Gold Lion in Entertainment for Sport, a Bronze Lion in Film, and two Bronze Lions in Film Craft categories, according to records cited by adsoftheworld.com and campaignme.com. The One Show 2025 awarded the campaign a Bronze Pencil with nine total points, as documented by The One Club. The film also won a Sports Emmy Award in 2025 in the Outstanding Promotion category, as reported by arabianbusiness.com — a recognition that places the work in direct competition with promotional content produced by established American sports broadcasters and leagues.
No independent third-party data on viewership, earned media value, or ticket sales impact attributable specifically to "Obsession" is publicly available. What the award record does confirm is that the campaign succeeded structurally: a single film asset, released in December 2024 in Saudi Arabia, achieved top-tier recognition across entertainment, film, film craft, and sports promotion categories simultaneously. That breadth of recognition across distinct jury pools — each evaluating different creative and strategic dimensions — suggests the work performed consistently rather than excelling on one narrow criterion.
For BigTime Creative Shop, the campaign advances the agency's standing as a creative force operating from Riyadh with global competitive reach. For Riyadh Season, it consolidates the General Entertainment Authority's positioning as a sports entertainment commissioner capable of producing culture, not merely hosting it.
"Obsession" is a surreal comedy film promoting the Oleksandr Usyk versus Tyson Fury boxing rematch at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh on 21 December 2024. Created by BigTime Creative Shop, the film depicts each fighter haunted by the other in absurdist everyday scenarios, scored to a reworked version of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head."
Directing duo Megaforce directed "Obsession" for production company Riff Raff Films. The film was created by BigTime Creative Shop, with creative direction by CCO Rayyan Aoun and Creative Director Saymon Medeiros, and art direction by Gustavo Bilesimo and Bruno Freitas, as documented by campaignme.com.
"Obsession" won a Gold Lion in Entertainment for Sport, a Bronze Lion in Film, and two Bronze Lions in Film Craft at Cannes Lions 2025, according to adsoftheworld.com and campaignme.com. The campaign also received a Bronze Pencil at The One Show 2025 and won a Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Promotion, per arabianbusiness.com.
BigTime Creative Shop used surreal comedy to differentiate Riyadh Season from conventional hype-driven boxing promotions. The approach exploited the contrasting personalities of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk while making the campaign broadly entertaining, extending its reach beyond core boxing audiences and reinforcing Riyadh Season's identity as a global cultural platform.
The film uses a reworked version of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" as its soundtrack. As noted by selfstorming.com and adsoftheworld.com, the song's title mirrors the campaign's creative concept — each fighter is unable to escape thoughts of the other — giving the film an immediate tonal identity without requiring exposition.
"Day of Reckoning," released in 2023 by BigTime Creative Shop for Riyadh Season, used cinematic film to promote a December boxing event featuring Anthony Joshua and others, positioning Riyadh as a global sports destination. "Obsession" continues that creative lineage while shifting tone toward surreal comedy, reflecting a maturing strategy for the General Entertainment Authority.
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