Key points:
- Joshua and Fury expected to meet an an official launch press conference on September 30
- The welcome news comes after many days of uncertainty and confusion over the fight
- Joshua and Fury will meet in London to officially launch their December 11 super-fight
British heavyweight rivcals Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury are expected to go head to head for the first time tomorrow since their blockbuster fight was confirmed last Thursday.
The longtime rivals are set to lock horns on Friday, December 11th at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in Wales, live on DAZN.
Despite a few days of uncertainty and confusion, as UFC’s Dana White intervened to say he was promoting the mega-fight, much to Matchroom Boxing’s promoter Eddie Hearn’s annoyance, it appears that the fight is back on track for the 345th day of the year.
Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua’s first press conference is now expected to go ahead in London on Wednesday after a number of issues were resolved.
Hearn had told Sky Sports over the weekend that “nothing was confirmed for next week, press conference-wise”, and added: “with regards to are we expecting to be there, there wouldn’t be one without us.”
But Fury and Joshua will now trade words in front of the cameras and have a pre-fight face-off at British Airways ARC at the Olympia after an agreement was reached ahead of this week’s eagerly awaited media event.
Fury raised fresh doubts about the fight taking place on Saturday, insisting there was a ‘one per cent’ chance that he would face Joshua next.
Hearn had recently questioned Fury over the pre-fight drug testing, but Fury’s manager, Spencer Brown, confirmed that he enrolled six days earlier than required.
Joshua, Hearn, Fury and his promoter Frank Warren are now all set to be in attendance in London.
Speaking to the FurociTV YouTube channel, Fury had said at the weekend: “If you’ve got a guy that wants to fight, yeah, and you’ve got a guy that doesn’t want to fight, then how are you going to make that fight happen?
“I’ve had nearly 40 professional fights, yeah, and I’ve been on top of this game for over a decade, right? How did I manage to fight all these people before you, all these champions, yeah, for all these titles that there is in boxing, but, yeah, every time it comes to fighting [Joshua]… it never happens.
“Has anyone ever asked themselves why?”
But Joshua and Fury are now going to press ahead with their media obligations for a fight that will reportedly have the WBA ‘super’ heavyweight title at stake.
“I’ve just seen today that it’s for the WBA world heavyweight title as well, so that’s another little bit of incentive,” Fury said in his interview.
“Whoever wins this one will become three-time heavyweight champion. So that’s another incentive to win.”