At long, long last it appears that a fixed date and venue for the anticipated meeting between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua is moving closer to finally being confirmed.
There’s been false dawns before, of course. But with the final details seemingly close to being thrashed out, the hope is that all talk of ‘will it, won’t it’ can be brushed away once and for all.
The Principality Stadium in Cardiff is set to be named as the chosen venue for arguably the most-talked-about fight in British boxing history. The Welsh capital will stage the global event on Friday, December 11.
Many have cited the fact that the stadium – normally reserved for international rugby union games – has a roof option as being key in swinging it in Cardiff’s favour – particularly given the bout will be taking place during the notoriously unpredictable British weather.
For a long time, many people assumed that if the fight was to take place on British soil, that Wembley Stadium would be the natural location for the two Englishmen to square off. BBC Sport reports that Netflix, Saudi Arabian organisers Sela and the respective camps of both Fury and Joshua have been thrashing out talks – and that an official announcement on Cardiff is widely expected before this week is over.
It marks a change in the flow of negotiations with New York long thought to be the front-runner until it was insisted by Joshua’s camp that the fight be staged on home soil. The Principality, which first opened in 1999, has a capacity of just shy of 74,000 with the retractable roof helping them swing it. In addition, Joshua has history with the venue having defeated both Carlos Takam and Joseph Parker there in in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
Another possible head-scratcher for organisers was picking a fight start time that allows them to cash in on the lucrative US market. Given the time differences and Wembley’s strict curfew rules, it would have meant the latest the fight could have started was 11pm local time – 6pm back in the States.
Cardiff, by contrast, offers more scope given that the Welsh Rugby Union, which owns and operates the stadium, previously indicated it would be happy to host the fight and confirmed a late-night finish would not be a dealbreaker. Back in 2007 the venue hosted Joe Calzaghe’s world title fight against Mikkel Kessler – a bout that did not get underway until 2am local time.
Touching briefly on the issue of start time at the weekend, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn said: “People talk about a 3 a.m. BST [10 p.m. ET] fight? I don’t think you’ll see the fight that late. But obviously there had to be conversations with the stadium about what’s possible and what is not possible. That’s probably a reason for the delay [of the official announcement] — to make sure everything is boxed off with the council to have a slightly later start time.”
