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Turki Al-Sheikh has said that if the curfew can be extended to 2am, then the Joshua-Fury fight can take place at Wembley stadium, but Matchroom Boxing boss, Eddie Hearn, has revealed that it can only take place in the UK anyway, despite talks of the fighting moving to Las Vegas.
The 47-year-old promoter told Playbook Boxing, powered by Betway that it’s up to him where the fight takes place, “Ultimately, we kind of hold the keys in that respect because our contract clearly states the fight must take place in the UK. And that was a condition that AJ wanted in the contract, I wanted, and that’s where we want and expect the fight to take place.
“I also understand that Netflix and Turki Al-Sheikh are paying a lot of money for the fight and they want the biggest audience possible. Basically, when you do a fight at what would be 5pm or 4pm ET, and 1pm on the west coast on a Saturday in America, it really limits the audience because you’re kind of caught up around college football and a plethora of other sports that exist in America.
“So, Turki Al-Sheikh came to us and said, “look, maybe we could do the fight at 9pm in America, 2am in the UK. And we sort of said, “no, we really want our fights to take place earlier in the UK and so forth.
“So he’s trying to come up with a solution of trying to do the fight a little bit later in the UK, but also to cater for the American audience. Because ultimately, they need the biggest audience possible for the money that they’re paying. It’s not rocket science.
The fan doesn’t really care about that, and that’s fine as well, but the business cares about that.
“As long as the fight’s in the UK – obviously I’d prefer it at 11pm, like everybody would – but if it’s at 2am in the UK, does it really matter? We’re all going to go, we’re all going to have a great night, but we still get the biggest fight of all time in our country, which is really important.
“The other thing to note is that can only happen if you’ve got the support of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who’s thankfully a fight fan, but also Transport for London, because the infrastructure changes. You can’t have a fight at two o’clock in the morning, everyone comes out of stadium and there’s no trains and no buses for people to get home. So that then has to be laid on by the City of London, which by the way makes business sense because the fight’s going to generate a huge amount for London commercially. So that’s a conversation between Sadiq Khan and Turki Al-Sheikh, which will basically be, “if we bring this fight to London, are you prepared to put the infrastructure in place for fight fans?”
“The AJ fight is coming up in two weeks, and then I think Turki Al-Sheikh will want to be in a position after that fight to maybe even get both guys in the ring and say, “it’s on, this is the date, and this is where it’s happening,” because at the moment everyone is sort of tired of just doing interviews. We’ve got to win against Prenga first.”
Hearn added that the divisive Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, could raise his stock if he is able to help get the fight over the line, “Well, you might become popular off the back of it. You know what I mean? Forget all the other problems you’ve got in London. Here’s a chance to actually do something for the city. This is a once in a lifetime event. Sadiq Khan has a history through Earlsfield Amateur Boxing Club with his family. He is actually a really big fight fan. He’s helped before on fights at the national stadium.
“This is something a little bit beyond that because it is expensive. But when you do these fights, the ecosystem just benefits all around. Restaurants, hotels, taxis. It brings tens of millions of pounds to the economy. So actually, financially, it’ll all work out, but you’ve got to have the backbone to do the hard yards to actually put everything in place.”
Anthony Joshua first has to defeat the KO artist Kristian Prenga on July 25 in Saudi Arabia before preparing for Fury in the Fall. Hearn shared how his heavyweight charge is looking just two weeks out from fight night, “I’ve just been with him the last couple of days in camp and like people always ask how’s he looking? He’s always looked great in camp. You turn up, the blokes absolutely ripped to shreds. He’s training. I’ve never seen anyone train harder than him.”
