“…Despite the significant development in the field of RCM, its application to the synthesis of tetrasubstituted olefins remains a significant challenge . In fact, to the best of our knowledge, RCM has never been employed in total synthesis to generate a tetrasubstituted cycloheptenone. , To our delight, when 7 was treated with 10 mol % of Hoveyda–Grubbs second-generation catalyst (HG-II) in toluene at 110 °C, the desired trans -hydroazulenone 6 was obtained in 36% yield, along with 48% of the recovered starting material. Several commercially available RCM catalysts, including the molybdenum-based Shrock catalyst, were evaluated, showing that the HG-II was the most efficient (see Supporting Information).…”