The most interesting subplot in Sin City this week is that the biggest boxing fight for years in the United States is being promoted by the world’s leading cage-fighting promoter and is on a global streaming service.

Saul “Canelo” Álvarez and Terence Crawford are modern stars of boxing, and their super fight (joint purse reportedly £148m) signals a shift in boxing in the US.

The UFC, led by its promoter Dana White, will oversee the event, while Netflix, with its 300-million-plus subscriber base, will be the broadcast cradle for what started as a fantasy fight.

It will not be a pay-per view event, either, but free to subscribers. Look at the 110 million subscribers who tuned in to see Jake Paul “fight” Mike Tyson on Netflix last November. It will be held at the vast Allegiant Stadium, capacity 72,000, in the gaudy, glitzy Vegas mecca for some of the biggest nights of pugilism in modern history.

In the foreground, moreover, is the presence and the big bucks from Saudi Arabian investment, which many in the sports world now seem happy to sit alongside.

Myself and a few other insiders called for this Canelo-Crawford contest when Crawford, with physical majesty and awe-inspiring muscularity, defeated his arch US rival Errol Spence two years ago, elevating himself to boxing’s top tier.

“Bud” Crawford, an African-American who has boxed his way out of poverty and strife in Omaha, Nebraska, required an opponent to display his greatness even further and, in Canelo, he has found just that.

Canelo, a Mexican hero in a country drunk in love with boxing, has been the standard-bearer for the past 20 years, since his inception into the paid ranks at the age of just 15.

That Canelo is naturally from two weight divisions above – effectively a stone heavier – only adds to the intrigue of boxing skills Crawford must display against the more powerful, multi-weight flaxen-haired Mexican.

But back to this subplot. Enter stage right, Turki Al-Sheikh, the Saudi Arabian minister who has, in less than two years, invested an estimated billion dollars revolutionising the sport, ridding it of the politics of match-making and rival promoters, and underwriting the biggest match-ups in its blue-riband heavyweight division.

The upshot has been, in 24 months, creating a heavyweight king in Oleksandr Usyk and, in the process, making himself the most influential and instrumental figure in the business of boxing.

The business of the sport, in Al-Sheikh’s eyes, was to get the best fighting the best. And with alacrity. That was music to the ears of Dana White, whose credo for the mixed martial arts world of UFC has always been about the best fighting the best in their prime. It has worked, too.

The UFC is now among the big five sports in the US, along with the hockey, American football, basketball and baseball. The UFC has grown, while boxing faded into the background post-Floyd Mayweather. Witness, indeed, the new broadcast deal signed recently by White: a $7bn (£5.1bn) five-year deal for the UFC with the Paramount network, crucially with no pay-per-view events.

It has heralded the Saudi minister proclaiming the same for boxing, that he will bring an end to the PPV model. Al-Sheikh is not only the most influential figure in the sport, but also its arch-disruptor. These plans put Al-Sheikh and White on a convergent path. And here they are, in Vegas, aligned in a first event, ready to reconquer America with boxing, and make the now jaded American public interested again.

The pressing question, no less, is can Al-Sheikh – along with White – save boxing in the US? They are calling Canelo-Crawford the biggest fight of this century.

I would say it is the biggest fight in the United States since Oscar De La Hoya fought Mayweather in 2007, breaking pay-per-view records at the time by reaching 2.4 million households, beating the previous record of 1.99 million households for Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson II.

About $136m in revenue was generated by the Mayweather-De La Hoya PPV fight, but this bout on Saturday night can also be compared as a modern version of the 1987 super-fight at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard, the two best boxers across the pond.

Leonard was coming up in weight, and his speed and skills did for Hagler. Some say the same here for Crawford against Canelo. I am not so sure. I think Canelo will be too powerful, too experienced, and will claim victory over 12 rounds. It might even be controversially judged, and they will replay it. A common feature in Vegas fights. But one thing is for sure. The UFC and Netflix have got a seat at the table, and may be here to stay.