Published: 02:00 BST, 5 September 2026 | Updated: 09:41 BST, 5 September 2026
I remember the first time I reported that cogs were turning on a fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. It was a good while ago – almost 12 years, actually.
The date was December 2, 2014. I’d spoken that evening to Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, when both his guy and Fury were unbeaten and neither had fought for a world title.
Hearn, then and now, was bullish in spelling out his plan. ‘It is a fight I would love to make next summer,’ he told me. ‘People ask if AJ is ready to fight Fury but, to be honest, is Fury ready to fight AJ?’
It was a nice line for the back page and ultimately good for one thing alone – proving the timeless point that, in boxing, you should only believe it when you see it.
But here we are, trapped in a different version of the same dance all these years on.
Because as of Friday, the fight was on and, according to Hearn, talks had been resurrected to take it to Wembley Stadium. A day earlier it was heading to New York’s Madison Square Garden on November 20 and Joshua’s team were floating the possibility of canning the whole thing in protest.
They were furious that a contract signed three months ago, stipulating a UK venue, was being broken so that Netflix could have a cosier fit with American viewing hours. The Saudi powerbrokers for the fight, led by Turki Alalshikh, were evidently happy to side with the broadcaster, to hell with the British audience for a British fight, and ostensibly that is what sent Hearn and Joshua into a spin.
Twelve years on from when I reported that Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury were in talks to fight each other, the pair are still yet to touch gloves
Fury and Joshua are closer than ever to trading blows, with signatures on contracts, but they are still squabbling on the details
Time will tell if they get their way – Wembley conversations may have reopened, but it isn’t the only factor at play in this game of brinksmanship. Far from it.
I’ve had conversations this week with people around the deal and can flesh out a few of the details behind the chaos, which boils down to a boring three-letter word. Tax.
It’s something Hearn himself has alluded to in interviews this week – he mentioned that tax conditions in the US were unfavourable for Joshua. The information I’ve since received illustrates what that would look like in real language.
In short, it is my understanding that Joshua’s team have somewhere close to 10 million reasons not to want the fight in New York. Explained in a slightly longer form: if it is staged in London, the tax for a pair of non-UK residents would be around 20 per cent and in the US ‘withholding tax’ is around 30 per cent.
That is a significant jump with the purses involved – I’m told Joshua and Fury are in line to receive approximately $100m each (around £74m), so a $10m shortfall on the net amounts they would take back to Dubai and the Isle of Man respectively has not gone unnoticed.
