It seems as though the long-awaited meeting of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury could be around the corner but, due to a delay in the fight, one venue for the rumoured November fight can now be ruled out, according to promoter Eddie Hearn.
Hearn has stated that the initial strategy was for Joshua to take on Rico Verhoeven in March, who instead fights Oleksandr Usyk next month, before a stadium clash with ‘The Gypsy King’ in August. However, Joshua’s tragic car crash put his fight plans on hold.
Last week, Croke Park chief executive Peter McKenna stated that they would finally be able to stage Katie Taylor’s much-desired appearance at the 82,300-capacity Dublin venue, if ‘AJ’ and Fury headlined the card.
Although, with Joshua keen to have a ‘warm-up’ fight, his proposed showdown with Fury is now understood to have been pushed back to November.
As a result, Hearn has stated that Croke Park is a no-go, but that he would like to proceed with a Taylor-topped bill at Ireland’s largest stadium, as per Belfast News Letter.
“If this (Joshua v Fury) takes place in November, it won’t be outdoors in Dublin and so therefore we just want to move forward with Katie Taylor.
“With all due respect, I don’t think it’s the place to do this fight, either. Also, absolutely over my dead body is Katie Taylor going on an undercard at Croke Park.
“We’ll find out more on Friday. We’re ready to go and are up for doing it. Not necessarily with a finalised opponent, but in terms of the costs and the running of the show.
“Croke Park want to do it, but when they said ‘Fury v AJ would give Katie the opportunity to fight there’, I was like ‘mate, don’t f****** get the blood boiling’.”
Instead, Wembley Stadium is the unsurprising favourite to stage Joshua-Fury, with the potential to break to the British post-war record of 96,000 spectators for a boxing event.