The most hyped and regularly postponed fight in recent British boxing history will apparently take place this year after Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury agreed terms to meet in the ring. Long in the making, and coming far too late in the faded careers of both former world heavyweight champions, the much-delayed showdown will be a guaranteed money-spinner for the fighters and their backers.
Eddie Hearn, who promotes Joshua, could barely contain his glee in an Instagram post that said: “Signed, sealed, delivered! AJ v Fury is on! The biggest piece of business we’ve ever done but more importantly the one we’ve always wanted. Biggest year of AJ’s career coming up, the comeback is on.”
The bout is expected to take place in November with Netflix having broadcast rights.
Joshua was stopped brutally in his last competitive bout when Daniel Dubois knocked him out in five rounds in September 2024. It was a crushing defeat and Joshua was out of the ring for nearly 15 months before he faced the former YouTube influencer Jake Paul in December. He looked listless before he eventually dispatched the boxing novice and broke Paul’s jaw in the process.
He will fight the obscure Albanian heavyweight Kristian Prenga in Riyadh on 25 July as a tune-up before facing Fury. Prenga has won 20 of his 21 bouts, all by knockout, but not one of his opponents carries any world-class pedigree. It is more instructive that Prenga lost to the deeply anonymous Dutch boxer, Giovanni Auriemma, who has beaten only one other opponent in his eight professional bouts.
Joshua is entitled to an easy return because he is still recovering from the car accident in Nigeria that killed two of his close friends and left him in hospital late last year.
“It’s no secret I’ve taken some time to consolidate and rebuild to be ready for stepping back into the ring and this is the next step on that journey,” he said. “I’m delighted to have agreed a multi-fight deal starting with 25 July in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I’m looking forward to competing and picking up where I left off. As I said, the landlord will collect his rent. That is certain.”
That reference to Joshua’s description of himself as his rival’s landlord stems from the strange exchange between the two fighters after Fury completed his own return to the ring this month. After his uninspiring points victory over Arslanbek Makhmudov, the gritty but lumbering Russian, Fury had called out Joshua who was watching from ringside. “I’ve been chasing you for the last 10 years,” Joshua told Fury. “You 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.”
Fury and the crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium could not hear Joshua because of a malfunctioning microphone – and the self-proclaimed Gypsy King cut a frustrated figure at the post-fight press conference. “After all this time, there’s uncertainty if this fight’s gonna happen next. I’ve no idea. I hope so but you can’t force someone to do something.”
Fury also said then that: “If it ain’t Anthony Joshua next I’m not interested in boxing. I’ll eat a thousand Easter eggs, go up to 35 stone. I’m out. It’s either him or I’m gone again. I’m not interested in up-and-comers. I’m not interested in someone trying to prove a point over me. I don’t care about rankings or belts. I only care now about AJ. That’s the defining fight for British boxing.”
Saudi Arabia’s boxing powerbroker Turki al-Sheikh had suggested on social media earlier on Monday, even before Hearn’s announcement, that the fight had finally been agreed. “To my friends in Great Britain – it’s happening,” he said. “It’s signed.”
