The announcements have come thick and fast today and everyone is claiming to be making it.
Team Joshua, Matchroom, manager Freddie Cunningham, promoter Eddie Hearn and, of course, Anthony Joshua, as well as PR agency Soapbox, have all announced that Tyson Fury will fight Anthony Joshua on December 11 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
We knew it, but it hadn’t been confirmed.
“WE DID IT,” Hearn triumphantly wrote on social media. “Forever indebted to the U.K. public for their support of @anthonyjoshua. We couldn’t have got this over the line without you.”
Well, that’s all well and good. Hearn has gone public many times stating they were fighting to have the contest in the UK, despite many powerful forces attempting to lure the bout towards New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Then there was the equally triumphant announcement from Turki Alalshikh, who said: “For 15 years no one has been able to make this fight. Back in April, I said that any announcement would come from me. I can now confirm that Fury vs. Joshua will be coming to the UK, as I promised British boxing fans. The time for talking is over.”
Let’s not mention that 15 years ago fight fans were talking about Tyson Fury fighting David Price and Anthony Joshua was still an amateur, let’s not talk about the replies blowing up Turki’s X account (far from congratulatory, I will say), and let’s not talk about it being a ‘British fight’ if we are to believe Hearn, who told IFL today: “TKO started getting involved in the Netflix deal, Turki Alalshikh, Netflix, they all wanted to do the fight at Madison Square Garden in November… Everybody wanted the fight in America.”
