Matchroom CEO Frank Smith gives honest update on Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua fight
Netflix ran a promotional trailer for Tyson Fury against Anthony Joshua during Monday’s edition of WWE Raw, built around the line “Two champions, one crown.” Fury followed it the next morning with a video telling followers that big news was coming imminently, and by Tuesday evening Daily Mail Sport had reported that both fighters signed for Friday, Nov. 20 at Madison Square Garden. The promotion for a fight a decade in the making is running well ahead of the paperwork that decides where it happens.
Eddie Hearn spent Tuesday saying the venue is unresolved. The Matchroom chairman, who promotes Joshua, said his company remains in constant communication with Turki Alalshikh and Sela but that there is “no agreement to any variation within the contract.”
Joshua’s contract for the bout specifies that it be staged in the United Kingdom, and Fury’s carries no such condition, according to BoxingScene. Moving it to New York therefore requires Team Joshua to sign a fresh agreement, and Hearn has spent weeks saying Matchroom has not signed one.
Alalshikh is funding the event through Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, and Netflix wants a United States primetime window, which a Friday date protects by avoiding Saturday college football and Sunday NFL programming. Wembley Stadium was the original plan and faded once Alalshikh asked for ringwalks no earlier than 2 a.m. local time, a request that would have pushed the main event past the hour a British stadium crowd can realistically be held.
Speaking on The Punch Podcast, Hearn said that if the fight is announced without an agreement in place to change the venue, “there will be no fight and we ain’t bluffing.”
🚨 Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua is reportedly SIGNED for Friday, November 20 at Madison Square Garden in New York City‼️
Via (@MailSport) pic.twitter.com/CT1npvWxpv
— Source of Boxing (@Sourceofboxing) August 18, 2026
What still has to happen before this fight can be announced
Matchroom CEO Frank Smith told GiveMeSport that the bout itself was signed roughly three months ago, leaving the date and the venue as the outstanding items. ESPN reported yesterday that Fury, 36-2-1 with 25 knockouts, and Joshua, 30-4 with 27 knockouts, have signed to fight in November, with no venue or exact date announced and no official promoter yet named for the event.
Fury and Joshua agreed to fight in August 2021 with every major belt between them, and an arbitration ruling ordering Fury into a third bout with Deontay Wilder killed it. They first shared a ring in June 2010 as amateurs at Finchley Amateur Boxing Club in north London, three rounds in front of a handful of people, when Fury was 21 and Joshua was 20.
Joshua’s only previous appearance at Madison Square Garden ended in June 2019 with Andy Ruiz Jr. stopping him and taking three world titles. Selling him a return to that building is a straightforward commercial pitch and a complicated personal one, and it is being made by people who do not hold his contract.
Hearn has said Joshua’s instruction to him was to do everything possible to keep the fight at home, and he has framed the pressure from Alalshikh and Netflix as something Matchroom is absorbing rather than endorsing. A British staging would create its own broadcast tangle, since Matchroom and Queensberry both hold domestic deals with DAZN while Netflix wants the global stream.
BoxingScene reported that a formal announcement is expected within the coming week. Alalshikh, Netflix, Madison Square Garden and Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions have all moved toward New York, and Matchroom holds the signature that moves the fight there
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