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HEAVYWEIGHT

Wembley At 2am — Hearn Reopens The UK Route For Joshua vs Fury And Calls It 50-50

Wembley is back on the table for Joshua vs Fury — but only if two heavyweights walk to the ring at two o'clock in the morning. Hearn says he can get the Mayor of London on board and puts the odds at 50-50. Luke on the licence, the tax bill, and whether British fans would actually turn up.

By • September 8, 2026 By
  • Eddie Hearn says Anthony Joshua would accept a 1am or 2am ring walk to keep the Tyson Fury fight at Wembley rather than move it to New York, and rates the chances at 50 percent
  • Wembley's premises licence allows a maximum of three overnight events a year between 11pm and 9am, and any curfew extension would go before Brent Council's safety advisory group
  • Luke's verdict: the tax bill is the real driver, the Mayor's backing helps, but the transport plan is the thing that quietly sinks it — and this fight still ends up in New York

Two O'Clock In The Morning. Seriously.

Right then. While Tyson Fury has been telling anybody who will listen that the fight is dead, Anthony Joshua's side have quietly gone and reopened the one route everybody had written off. Wembley. At two o'clock in the morning.

Eddie Hearn's line on it was blunt. "If the question is the fight will take place in the UK, but it will be a 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning main event, or it has to go to New York, we'll do it at 1:00 or 2 o'clock in the morning. And I believe I can get the mayor of London to come on board for that."

He puts the chances of getting it over the line at 50 percent. Which, for a promoter, is basically admitting it is a coin flip — and Hearn does not usually undersell.

Why They Are Even Considering It

Because of tax, and it is not close. Netflix want Madison Square Garden because New York delivers a US primetime audience. Joshua's problem is that fighting on American soil means roughly 37 percent federal tax plus a combined New York state and city rate of around 14.7 percent. On a purse the size this fight commands, that is tens of millions of pounds gone before anybody has counted a ticket.

So the compromise is obvious once you see the numbers: keep the fight in Britain, where Joshua's tax position is far kinder, and simply move the ring walks to whatever ungodly hour makes American television happy. Two in the morning in London is nine o'clock on a Saturday evening on the US east coast. It works on paper.

The Licence Is The Problem

Three Nights A Year

Wembley National Stadium Ltd holds a premises licence from Brent Council that permits a maximum of three overnight events a year between 11pm and 9am, and those come with strict residential noise conditions attached. It is not a blanket ban — there is a route — but it is a narrow one, and Brent have made clear that any request to stretch the curfew goes before their safety advisory group first.

Sadiq Khan Is On Side

The Mayor of London has publicly pushed for Wembley to host it, which is exactly the political cover Hearn needs. A Mayor lobbying for a fight that brings tens of thousands of visitors into the city is a different proposition to a promoter asking a borough council for a favour. That is the strongest card in Hearn's hand and he knows it.

Getting 90,000 People Home

And this is the bit nobody wants to talk about. A main event finishing somewhere between two and four in the morning means emptying a 90,000-capacity stadium into a transport network that is barely running. Wembley Central, Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park all have limited overnight service. Night Tube and night buses exist but were never designed to move a stadium at 4am. Brent's safety advisory group will look at that before they look at anything else, and I am not sure the answer is yes.

Would British Fans Actually Go?

Let's not beat around the bush — yes, they would. This is the fight this country has wanted for eleven years. People would sit in a stadium until sunrise for it. But there is a difference between selling the tickets and delivering the night, and a crowd that has been in a stadium since seven the previous evening waiting for a 2am ring walk is a different crowd by the time the main event starts. Anyone who has been to a late Vegas card knows what a seven-hour wait does to an atmosphere. If you know, you know.

Luke's Verdict

I am not sitting on the fence: it ends up in New York. Hearn's 50 percent is a promoter's number, and the honest one is lower. The licence route exists but it is tight, the transport case is genuinely difficult, and Netflix are the ones paying — and Netflix want the Garden. The 2am Wembley plan is a proper piece of negotiating from Hearn, and it does one useful thing: it proves Joshua is not the one refusing to fight, whatever Fury is shouting this week. But when the announcement finally comes, it will have a New York postmark on it. The full picture on where the Fury side of this stands is in our piece on Usyk's camp shutting the trilogy down, and every confirmed card is on the fight cards page.

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