The Joshua Fury fight is edging closer — both heavyweights have their warm-ups out of the way and promoters expect it to happen in November — but the venue has become the real scrap. Reports point to Madison Square Garden in New York on November 20, and Eddie Hearn says he and Anthony Joshua are digging in to keep the biggest all-British heavyweight fight in a generation on home soil.
Speaking on talkSPORT Boxing, as reported by Boxing News 24, Hearn revealed Joshua wrote a UK-only clause into the deal. “Anthony Joshua made me insert a clause into the contract that said the fight must happen in the UK. So, at the moment, it can’t happen anywhere else,” Hearn said. “I kind of feel like right now me and AJ are kind of like the last two standing on the hill waving the Union Jack.”
Where will the Joshua Fury fight land?
The pressure is coming from every direction. According to Boxing News Online, Turki Alalshikh’s Sela team — with Netflix keen on a stateside event — is pushing for New York, and Hearn admits the mood is against him. “It seems like everybody wants the fight [to be] in America … [apart from] Anthony Joshua and myself,” he told IFL TV, describing the twist as “disappointing.” Team Joshua, he added, is trying to make it “so financially unviable” to switch that a move becomes impossible.
Not everyone in the game shares the American enthusiasm. Former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, speaking on the Fight Your Corner podcast, said he “don’t understand why it’s going to the US,” arguing a British blockbuster belongs at home. Hearn, meanwhile, has flatly rejected calls from TKO and Zuffa to attach themselves to the promotion, saying he won’t hand “my biggest competitor” a role in a fight they have “absolutely nothing to do with.”
Frank Warren, in Fury’s corner, sees no reason to wait. The Queensberry promoter told a media roundtable he expects the bout in November, with camps opening in early September: “What is the point? Get on with it.” Both men boxed last month, and neither performance dazzled — both now in their late thirties, the window is closing for Fury and Joshua alike.
So the fight is edging closer and November is the target — but where the first bell rings is still anyone’s guess.
