Right Then, Somebody Finally Said It
Right then. Tyson Fury against Anthony Joshua is the fight this country has been asking for since 2017, it is finally close enough to touch, and it is currently being used as a tug-of-war rope by people who are not fighting in it.
Eddie Hearn went on iFL TV this week and put the blame in one very specific place. Dana White.
“Dana White has tried to get involved in a fight that he has nothing to do with.”
Hearn says White went around him and contacted Joshua directly, more than once, to push the fight out of Britain and into America. He says it got far enough that legal action was discussed. Let's not beat around the bush — that is a promoter accusing the most powerful man in combat sports of tapping up his fighter behind his back.
The Money Bit, Which Is The Bit That Matters
Here is the line that will follow Joshua around for the rest of his career, and I mean that as a compliment.
“Anthony Joshua could have taken many millions more to do the fight in America. We want the fight in Britain.”
Make no mistake, that is not nothing. Joshua is 36 and has had the hard nights. Wembley against Klitschko, the two Usyk defeats, the Dubois knockout. The window where he gets to name a number is not wide open any more, and he has just pushed a stack of it back across the table to keep the fight at home.
Whatever you think of Joshua — and plenty of people in this country have not forgiven him for the last four years — that is the correct call and he deserves to be told so.
Why Fury's Side Wants New York
Fury's camp are reportedly pushing Madison Square Garden. And you can see it from their end. Fury has never headlined the Garden. He has headlined Wembley, he has headlined in Vegas, and the one great arena missing from the collection is on 8th Avenue.
There is also the small matter of who gets the home crowd. A Cardiff or Wembley night is a Joshua night dressed up as a British night. Fury on neutral American ground, with the American media build he has always thrived on, is a different fight week entirely.
So it is not madness. It is just not what was signed.
Cardiff Is The Right Answer
Principality Stadium has emerged as the front-runner, and our earlier reporting on a Cardiff date pointed the same way. It should be Cardiff, and here is why.
The roof. You get 70,000-plus, you get it closed, you get the noise trapped in there, and you get the one atmosphere in British sport that genuinely rattles visiting fighters. Anyone who was there for Joshua-Parker in 2018 knows exactly what that building does on a big night.
Wembley is bigger and colder. Cardiff in December, roof shut, is the room this fight deserves.
The Problem Nobody Wants To Say
Here is the uncomfortable bit. Every week this spends in a car park between two continents is a week off the fight itself.
Fury turned 38 in August. Joshua is 36 and coming off a knockout loss. This was never going to be two fighters at their peak — that ship sailed somewhere around 2019 — but there is a difference between two well-preserved veterans and two men being asked to do it a year later than they should have.
The bout remains unsigned. There is no date. There is no venue. In September. For a fight that is supposedly happening in December.
Luke's Verdict
Hearn is right on the principle, and he should keep saying it loudly. If a contract says Britain, the fight happens in Britain, and a promoter from a different sport does not get to reopen it because he fancies the gate.
But I am not going to pretend the principle wins on its own. Money usually does. And the fact that Hearn is fighting this in public, on YouTube, through social media support, tells you he does not have this locked down in private.
My call: it lands in Britain, but it lands later than December — expect spring 2027 at Principality Stadium, and expect Fury to win a wide decision when it finally happens. Joshua's chin has been asked too many questions and Fury, even at 38, still knows more about a boxing ring than almost anyone alive.
Prove me wrong, lads. Sign it this month and I will take it back happily.
More heavyweight coverage on our news page, and every confirmed British date sits on the fight schedule.