They say everything comes to the one who waits, maybe that phrase was written with boxing in mind.
A Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua superfight will finally take place in Cardiff on Friday December 11, or maybe it’s Saturday December 12.
After making us wait five years after this all-British blockbuster should have happened, organisers are trying to make us wait another day. Make it make sense.
Fury and Joshua remember had a two-fight deal in place back in the summer of 2021, only for Deontay Wilder to win an arbitration ruling to force a trilogy match with Fury. The dream died, and we waited a long time for it to be resurrected.
These two British superstars - now aged 38 and 36 respectively - are now unquestionably past their peak but their match still carries considerable lustre. Tickets, priced between £88.50 and £13,128, sold out within one hour.
Why the obsession with a US TV audience?
But there is still one thing that makes little sense about this massive promotion - the obsession with making it cater for a US TV audience.
First we had the wild plan to stage this bout at Madison Square Garden in New York. Unquestionably a hallowed venue for the sport, but making no sense for what is essentially a very British prizefight.
Don’t believe the people who tell you that Fury vs Joshua is an enormous draw on the other side of the pond. It will absolutely appeal to hardcore Stateside fight fans, but outside of that? Not so much.
Netflix has ponied up significant cash to net the live rights to this bout (Fury and Joshua are expected to earn anything up to £100m each for their night’s work), and we presume that is why having it at a US-friendly time matters. But again, it makes no sense.
We know Netflix + boxing works - most of the world is already subscribed and a big fight is a lovely one-off way to market to more potential customers.
Netflix viewing figures tell the real story
But just look at the figures for previous bouts on the streaming platform and what they tell you.
Netflix really dipped its toe into boxing waters in late 2024 when YouTuber Jake Paul fought the then 58-year-old Mike Tyson. The result - a stunning global audience of c.125million but a truly dreadful fight.
The thing propping up that bout was the unknown and the myth of one Mike Tyson. It was around 20 years after he had last stepped into a boxing ring professionally. Maybe he still had it? Many things dull with time, notably memory.
The next time Jake Paul engaged in a huge match it was his showdown with Anthony Joshua in Miami in December 2025. Again a horrible fight and now an audience of ‘just’ 33 million. There was no doubt who was the ‘A side’ in Paul vs Tyson.
Some five million fans in the UK alone then watched Fury’s comeback from a 16-month layoff to defeat Arslanbek Makhudov in April 2026. We’d be more interested in how many watched on Netflix in the US.
Make no mistake, Fury vs Joshua is a huge fight. Just not a huge fight in the US to anybody who isn’t a bona fide boxing aficionado. So trying to shoehorn it into a US viewing spot makes absolutely no sense.
All this does is leave UK fight fans in the position of watching a fight taking place in their own country, between their own fighters, in the middle of the night.
This is not just rumours either - per widespread reports an application has been lodged with Cardiff council to have ring walks for the fight at 1am UK time (8pm Eastern in the US).
You might think this is a minor inconvenience for UK fans after all the years of waiting, but no, it feels like a big slap in the face. We are trying to cater for something that does not really exist - massive US interest in an all-British superfight.
At this point we should thank Joshua (and promoter Eddie Hearn) for refusing to bow to other interests and standing their ground that this fight should take place in the UK.
We did dodge one massive bullet - imagine UK fans having to get a plane over to NYC to watch this fight? Yep, total madness. But the ring walks still present a little collateral damage.
In boxing, no matter how hard we try, nothing is ever totally perfect.
