The long-awaited “Battle of Britain” between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua is stuck in limbo over a dispute regarding where the heavyweights will actually meet.
While both sides signed contracts for a November date, the venue remains unresolved. The disagreement prompted a furious response from “The Gypsy King, claiming the fight “doesn’t look like it’s going to happen” while blaming Eddie Hearn’s camp for making unreasonable financial demands to move the bout outside the UK.
Amid the noise, the two-time unified champion stayed quiet until breaking his silence on social media.
Anthony Joshua Reveals His Only Purpose
The core issue behind the drama is a major financial standoff over local tax laws. While both fighters signed contracts for a bout in the UK, event organizers are aggressively pushing to move it to Madison Square Garden in New York. This venue change would cost Joshua millions of dollars because of New York’s high state and city tax system.
Both Joshua and Fury expect to earn roughly $100 million each for this heavyweight clash. While Joshua keeps most of his purse under British tax laws, moving the event to New York changes everything.
On American soil, Joshua faces a 37% US federal tax alongside a combined New York state and city tax of around 14.7%. This means nearly $50 million of his purse would go straight to the US tax system, explaining why his camp is blocking the venue change.
Rather than argue about taxes or venues online, Joshua broke his silence by posting a series of intense gym photos on Instagram with a six-word caption: “My only purpose is the mission.”
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The photos and videos show Joshua working as hard as possible because his last opponent, Kristian Prenga, posed a serious threat early on before Joshua secured the second-round KO victory. In one clip, he can be seen undergoing high-tech conditioning by sprinting on a specialized treadmill while wearing an oxygen/VO2 max mask. In another video, he performs an intense cardiovascular test on a stationary Wattbike cycle inside a sports science lab.
By letting his physical condition do the talking, he leaves the financial and political warfare entirely to his promotional team. Meanwhile, Hearn seems completely unwilling to let the fight happen outside the UK.
Eddie Hearn Vows to Scrap Anthony Joshua Fight Over Venue Dispute
With organizers pushing for Madison Square Garden, Hearn addressed the financial standoff at a recent Matchroom Boxing press conference after Dana White took credit for brokering the Netflix deal and securing the venue, brushing off the ongoing contract disputes.
“What [the organisers] want to do is they want to pay Anthony Joshua less money because that’s how it’ll work out with the difference in location, they want him to do a load of additional stuff,” Hearn said.
He made it clear he is trying to protect the fight, but also wanted everyone to know that the other side has already broken parts of their original deal.
“I’m not going to blow things up, which I could do so easily, but there has been breaches in AJ’s contract already which we’ve let slide because these guys are our partners and our friends or WERE [our friends]. There’s a game being played at the moment,” Hearn added.
The back-and-forth is still not resolved. Meanwhile, boxing legend Mike Tyson recently revealed that he wants this fight to happen on British soil. In this situation, fans are keeping their fingers crossed so that the fight does not collapse after campaigning so hard to make it happen.
