It's partly the journeys of the two pugilists; it's partly the pull of young meeting old and, let's be honest, it's partly because no sport does self-promotion quite like boxing.
But the result is that when Britain's Anthony Joshua defends his world heavyweight title against the former champion Wladimir Klitschko on Saturday, the 90,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium will break a UK record.
And even for the pre-fight news conference, being held in Sky's flagship London building, Sky Central, workers are preparing to abandon their desks and watch the two 6ft 6in giants engage in verbal combat before their fists are called upon.
Three hundred journalists from around the world are expected to gather beneath the new glass-walled Sky News studio in Osterley to hear from the two Olympic champions.
"It promises to be an amazing day here in Osterley and it's a great opportunity for the outside world to see our new campus," said a Sky spokesman.
The reporters and the onlookers will get a chance to look into the eyes of the 41-year-old Ukrainian, whose Soviet Air Force colonel father died of a cancer the family attribute to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Does Klitschko still have the hunger and the fitness to wrest the title back from the 27-year-old Londoner?
Joshua won Olympic gold in London in 2012, 16 years after watching in awe as his opponent on Saturday achieved the same feat in Atlanta.
If local support counts for anything, Joshua will be fine.
A man who once spent two weeks on remand in Reading Jail ("for fighting, crazy stuff") has turned his life round to the extent that children at his old school in Watford talked this week of his giving them "something to aspire to".
Is he - as some experts contend - still too raw as a boxer? He has won all 18 fights as a professional by knockout, but Klitschko's trainer Johnathon Banks warns: "You can't buy experience."
Britain's former world champion Lennox Lewis, who retired after winning a bloody battle against Klitschko's brother Vitali, is among the media throng here, working for German TV.
"You don't want to be learning in big fights like this," he says, while finding himself unable to predict which way it will go.
Is the fight too early for Joshua or too late for Klitschko?
There is an undeniable fascination.
Hence the crowds.
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