More than a decade and a half after they first crossed paths in a sparring session, the two defining British heavyweight boxers of this era are set to finally meet in the prize ring.
Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, both former two-time world champions, are slated to clash on Friday, December 11.
The long-running rivalry between AJ and the Gypsy King has been a long, torturous and fruitless affair, and there was relief among the boxing fraternity when both men signed contracts in April to meet later in the year.
But, in many ways, that was only the start of the rigmarole, and the fight will now be staged in the UK at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
So how did a bout funded by Saudi Arabian largesse and touted variously for London, New York, Dublin and Las Vegas end up in the Welsh capital?
MORE: Anthony Joshua talks comeback from fatal crash and Tyson Fury jibes: ‘It’s not about me; it’s bigger than me’
Why is Joshua vs. Fury in Cardiff?
Joshua injured in fatal car crash
It will be worth keeping in mind as the hype and smack talk ramp up into fight week that Joshua is less than a year removed from being closely involved in an unimaginable tragedy. On December 29, 2025, just 10 days after his blowout win over Jake Paul in Florida, the 36-year-old suffered injuries in a car crash in Nigeria that killed Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele. Ghami and Ayodele were close friends of Joshua’s and served as his strength-and-conditioning coach and personal trainer, respectively.
Sporting plans obviously pale into insignificance in such circumstances, and the crash and its consequences delayed Joshua’s 2026 plans inside the boxing ring. The plans originally sketched out by his promoter Eddie Hearn in collaboration with Saudi boxing supremo Turki Alalshikh featured a February or March bout, possibly with kickboxing sensation Rico Verhoeven, before a July showdown with Fury.
At the turn of the year, it was unfair to speculate whether Joshua would even step into a boxing ring again. A month on from the crash, he confirmed his intention to continue his career.
Fury and Joshua clash after Gypsy King beats Makhmudov
Plans for a Joshua vs. Fury fight in summer 2026 began taking shape while Fury was in the midst of one of his myriad retirements. No one believed him, of course, and with good reason. Fury announced he would return, 16 months on from the second of his back-to-back defeats to Oleksandr Usyk, against lumbering Russian power puncher Arslanbek Makhmudov.
He even credited the horrific situation that engulfed Joshua with partly inspiring his return. “The biggest turning point in this comeback for me was the tragedy that happened with Anthony Joshua,” Fury said. “I was on holiday in Thailand with my family for Christmas … Anything could happen at any given moment, and you should never put things off until tomorrow, or the next year or next week, because tomorrow is not promised to nobody.”
Any faint hope of such cordiality and dignity remaining fell to pieces in the moments after Fury’s shutout points win over Makhmudov. Joshua watched on from ringside, with the stage set to announce their fight before the 60,000-plus crowd at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Such high-publicity moments are very much Alalshikh’s style.
The only catch was the contract not being signed yet and, considering the previous near-misses in their rivalry, Joshua used this as a reason not to play ball and remained slouched impassively in his ringside seat.
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“I want you, AJ. Anthony Joshua, let’s give the fight fans what they want: the Battle of Britain,” Fury hollered into a microphone. “And here’s my challenge: I challenge you, Anthony Joshua, to fight me, the Gypsy King, next. Do you accept my challenge?”
A microphone was passed to Joshua. Fury couldn’t hear him at first and the whole situation came to feel slightly farcical.
“Tyson, you’re a clout-chaser. I’ve never had any problem getting in the ring with you,” Joshua said. “I punched you up when we were kids, and after watching you here tonight, I’ll punch you up again. With all due respect, tonight is your night, and you know I’ll sit across that ring from you in due time.
“You ain’t going to tell me what to do. I’ve been chasing you for the last 10 years. When you’re ready, you come and see me and tell me your terms and conditions, and I’ll have you in the ring when I’m ready. I’m the boss, you work for me. I’m the landlord, remember that.”
The exchange showed both the fight to be closer than ever and the simmering animosity between two huge egos that had the potential to blow things up at any moment. Joshua’s reference to Fury’s “terms and conditions” came to feel somewhat prophetic.
Two-fight deal signed, but there’s a catch
On April 27, 16 days after the non-faceoff at Tottenham, it was announced Joshua would return to the ring in Saudi Arabia against Kristian Prenga on July 25 as part of a multi-fight agreement. He had signed to fight Fury, should he come through his bout with the undefeated but limited Albanian knockout artist unscathed. Fury had also signed to fight Joshua.
Simple enough, right? Well. Not quite
Since the Saudi Entertainment Authority entered big-time boxing in late 2023, it has organised events through its sports, entertainment and events management company Sela. Placing Sela at the centre of the various Riyadh Season and Ring Magazine cards has facilitated previously rival promoters working together for vast sums of money.
As Eddie Hearn explained earlier this month, this has led to boxers signing different terms for the same event, with various needs quickly agreed to without agreement from the other side, as would ordinarily be the case with a singular promotional entity running a show.
“It just causes non-stop problems. We had it with the Eubank-Benn fight as well,” Hearn said, having promoted Conor Benn in his two 2025 fights against Chris Eubank Jr., both of which were Ring Magazine shows. “As a small example, we were supposed to have the home dressing room in the fight, but Eubank had in his contract that he has the home dressing room.
“It sounds quite… but it causes big problems. Other things like who walks first and who walks second, even down to the hydration clauses and fines. Because people are so desperate to get deals done that rather than getting them done properly, they just say yes. But down the line, that ends up kicking you in the nuts.”
Joshua had a similarly painful experience in his fight against Prenga, where he was dropped heavily from an uppercut after 20 seconds and again before the end of a first round that he spent tottering around the ring in survival mode. The whole Fury fight hung by a thread, but Joshua regrouped and KO’d an ultimately overmatched foe in round two.
Mark Robinson-Matchroom Boxing
The same weekend, Fury looked a little shopworn against veteran Polish slugger Mariusz Wach. Both bouts, especially Joshua dicing with career ruin, underscored the fact that two great fighters who had seen better days must meet next. Frankly, it would be hard to fancy their chances against young, fresh, hungry heavyweights in their present state.
But there was no need to worry about that, right? They’d both signed contracts…
Location, location, location
As Hearn outlined, it has not been uncommon for shows pulled together by Alalshikh to have conflicting terms in each fighter’s contracts. The vast sums of money on the table have always ultimately smoothed things over. But Joshua and Fury have passed up making fortunes in one another’s company for years, and the lack of watertight terms and competing vested interests threw the bout back into jeopardy.
The biggest problem was that both men had signed for different preferred venues. Joshua, as has now been repeated to death by Hearn, signed to fight in the UK. Hearn claims Fury signed to box in Ireland. This schism opened when it became clear that broadcaster Netflix had a different preference.
The streaming giant showed Fury’s fight against Makhmudov at around 10 p.m. UK time, which translated to 5 p.m. ET. For a fight of the magnitude of Fury vs. Joshua and with the amount of money being put up, Netflix was keen for the bout to take place before a primetime US audience
Las Vegas was initially floated before Madison Square Garden in New York became a clear frontrunner. Staging the bout in the UK at, for example, Wembley Stadium in late November or December at U.S. primetime would mean a 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. start, which felt problematic in an open-air stadium before even considering sealing licensing agreements.
Dana White’s willingness to insert himself into the conversation certainly seemed to harden Hearn’s stance on a U.K. fight. UFC supremo White has entered into boxing with his Zuffa vehicle, which is owned as a joint venture between the TKO Group and…yep… Sela. This is part of a wider boxing civil war. Hearn sensationally lost Benn to Zuffa in February of this year, but this was one battle where he seemed determined not to yield.
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Destination Cardiff
Hearn went about banging the patriotic drum on Joshua’s behalf. The Londoner stayed largely quiet on the fiasco, while Fury volleyed off frequent social media videos lamenting his foes in the Matchoom corner as “sausages”,”dossers”, and all the other usual stuff.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said there was a willingness to hold the fight in England’s capital, and Cardiff emerged fairly late in the piece as a genuine contender. Which was odd because the 74,000-capacity Principality Stadium has the fairly obvious advantage of a retractable roof, to shield fans from the December weather and those on the outside of the din caused by hordes of well-refreshed boxing fans.
Joshua has also headlined shows at Cardiff twice before, his world title defence against Carlos Takam in October 2017 and a unification showdown with Joseph Parker the following March.
Those fights each took place at the expected time for a main event in the UK, but there is precedent for a world title bout being staged at the venue with an eye on boxing’s US fanbase. In November 2007, Welsh hero Joe Calzaghe unified the super middleweight division in a brilliant fight against Mikkel Kessler that began at 1 a.m. GMT. Hearn expects the bout to take place at a similar time.
In a statement announcing the fight, despite Hearn’s insistence that this would not be the case, White was confirmed as a co-promoter of Fury vs. Joshua with The Ring.
“There’s a load of battles to come on that, because that ain’t happening either,” Hearn told iFL TV.
Alalshikh said: “Two of the best heavyweights of this generation, finally in the ring together. This will be one of the biggest fights in boxing history, I am very happy to make this fight happen for the fans.”
Hearn or Fury’s promoter Frank Warren did not feature on the official release. He tweeted: “Forever indebted to the U.K. public for their support of Anthony Joshua, we couldn’t have got this over the line without you.” Speaking on Matchroom’s YouTube channel, Hearn confirmed there was no rematch clause. “We’re coming in for the kind of victory that would mean no one will need to see the fight again. Tyson Fury wouldn’t want the fight again.”
Joshua posted to claim he was “inspiring a generation”, having said shortly before the announcement: “The quietest ones often pull the strings. Those who appear least involved may hold the greatest control. Let them shout first, the wisest wait until the final move.”
Fury, for once, did not comment in the hour immediately after the Joshua fight was announced. Do not expect that to remain the case between now and fight night.
