Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua have circled each other for years without ever actually meeting in the ring, and the latest attempt to finally make it happen appears to be running into the same kind of obstacle that has sunk previous negotiations: money.
Fury addressed the situation directly in a video posted while exercising on a treadmill, claiming talks had effectively stalled. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to sign the fight and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen,” he said, placing the blame squarely on Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, and what he described as fresh demands for more money.
At the center of the dispute, according to reports, are tax implications tied to the proposed venue. A November 20 date at Madison Square Garden in New York had reportedly been under consideration, but Hearn is said to be seeking additional compensation to offset the tax burden of staging the fight there, a financial wrinkle that has apparently complicated talks significantly.
Fury didn’t stop at the venue dispute. He extended his criticism into a broader attack on Hearn and Joshua’s financial history, pointing to the money both have already earned through backing from Saudi advisor Turki Alalshikh across various ventures. “They’ve already had that much money off Turki in the last few years, Eddie and AJ,” Fury said. “They’ve had boxing deals, they’ve had darts deals, they’ve had snooker deals, they’ve had everything.”
None of this is happening in a vacuum. The proposed Fury-Joshua bout has been treated as one of British boxing’s biggest potential events for years, largely because of what it would represent: two heavyweights who have each held world titles, but who have never actually fought each other despite years of speculation and near-misses. That history is part of what makes each fresh round of stalled negotiations land as more than just routine promotional friction.
For now, no date or venue has been officially confirmed, and Fury’s latest comments only deepen the uncertainty around whether this particular chapter of the will-they-won’t-they saga ends any differently than the ones before it.
