Eddie Hearn Insists Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua Will Happen in the U.K.

Eddie Hearn is digging in. Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua, he insists, is coming home – and there is nothing Dana White can say to drag it across the Atlantic.

The heavyweight super-fight, long promised and still not delivered, has now become a tug-of-war over venue, ego and principle. On one side, the UFC boss, trying to lure the bout to a major American arena. On the other, Joshua and his promoter, refusing to walk away from a signed agreement to stage it in the U.K.

To Hearn, there is no grey area.

“Dana White says we are the only one upsetting this fight,” he told iFL TV, accusing the UFC chief of trying to blow up the existing deal. Hearn claims White has tried to persuade Sela, the Saudi-linked backers, to “break their contract, scrap a British fight, and bring it to America.”

The message from Matchroom’s boss is blunt: the contract stands, and so does Joshua.

“All we have ever done is said, ‘We’ve signed our contract. Just honor the contract that we’ve signed,’” Hearn said. In his telling, the stumbling block is not money, but geography – and Joshua’s refusal to trade home soil for a bigger cheque.

“He cares where the fight is. He cares about British boxing, and he cares about the contract that he signed,” Hearn said, before launching into White’s belief that “you can throw a little bit of money at someone and they’ll dance to your f*cking tune. Well, guess what? Not on A.J.’s watch.”

That line underpins the whole standoff. Hearn is adamant: the fight will not be in America “because Anthony Joshua is not a sellout.”

Money on the table, principles in play

Fury and Joshua have done their bit in the ring, banking recent wins over Mariusz Wach and Kristian Prenga respectively to keep the long-awaited showdown on track. Ring Magazine have already circled the end of 2026 as the rough window. Everything else is still up in the air.

What isn’t, according to Hearn, is where Joshua wants to walk to the ring.

“Anthony Joshua could have taken many millions more to do the fight in America and it was totally on him,” Hearn said. The promoter insists he stepped back and let his fighter decide: “‘Forget Eddie Hearn. What do I want? I want this fight in Britain.’”

The financial logic is obvious. If Joshua earns more, Hearn earns more.

“By the way, for anyone that’s got a brain, when A.J. makes a load more money, guess who else makes a load more money? Me,” he said. That, Hearn argues, shatters accusations that this is “fake patriotism” or some personal crusade against White.

“You call me, you say I’m mad about money, you’re saying it’s the only thing I care about, yet when I want to do the fight in Britain, it’s ‘fake patriotism.’ I thought I was crazy about money. What is it?”

The public reaction in Britain, he says, has only hardened their stance. Social media noise around Joshua insisting on a U.K. fight has become part of the story – and part of the leverage.

“The support that we’ve had on social media, my social media, A.J.’s social media, has made us double down our principles on this,” Hearn said. “We’re not trying to hurt the fight. We signed a contract. The whole thing’s crazy.”

In his view, the American push is as much about involvement and control as it is about cash.

“What they’re now doing is they’re sulking because they can’t be involved,” Hearn said, pointing to White’s public confidence over knowing the venue. “Because Dana White went out and told everybody, ‘I know where the fight is. You’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll see.’”

Hearn stopped short of gloating, but he did return to one line that has clearly stuck with him.

“The one thing he said previously and you know what, it just comes back and it resonates with me more and more and more. We are not the same. And I promise you one thing, we are not the same.”

The contract, the pressure, and the U-turn that never came

Behind the scenes, Hearn says, there was a moment when the fight’s location could have shifted. Terms were floated. Money discussed. On paper, the American package was “probably” deliverable.

“We got to a situation, we set out some terms where it might be able to agree,” Hearn said. “The money that we discussed, ultimately, probably was deliverable, was agreed.”

The pressure, he claims, ramped up. New addendums. Fresh angles. A full-court press to drag the bout to the U.S.

Anthony Joshua, Hearn insists, never truly wanted to sign anything that moved the fight away from the original agreement. While offers came in, he watched the reaction from British fans – and so did his promoter.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, it makes you fight that little bit harder,” Hearn admitted.

Presented with two offers, Joshua made his choice.

“He turned around to me with the two offers on the table and said, ‘No, I just want to stick to the original contract. I want to do this fight in the U.K.’”

That, Hearn says, flipped the dynamic. The message to the other side was simple: you can’t have it.

“Obviously, everyone went crazy, they threw their toys out the pram, certain people. They couldn’t believe that A.J. was standing firm on the U.K. ‘Oh, this is just Eddie Hearn doing it because he wants to make sure that Dana White doesn’t win or is not involved.’ I don’t give a f*ck. A.J. makes the decisions.”

And yes, Hearn freely admits, Joshua did walk away from more money to keep the fight in Britain.

“People say, ‘A.J. turned down more money to do it in the U.S. because he wanted to do it in the U.K.’ Yes. I’m not going to lie to you, that’s exactly what happened.”

Netflix, Sela and a nation waiting

While the venue row plays out in public, the machinery around the event is already turning. Hearn says the contract is signed, so there are no “negotiations” as such – just “discussions” with Netflix and Sela to bring the show to life under the existing terms.

“Right now, over the last week, we have been in constant communication and—I can’t say negotiation because the contract’s already signed—but discussions with Netflix and with Sela, and we believe we’re in a great position to move forward,” he said.

The final word on dates and venue will come from Turki Alalshikh, who has become the central powerbroker in elite boxing. Hearn is hopeful that within a week there could be an announcement confirming a U.K. fight.

If that happens, he expects a national eruption.

“If we do, there will be unbelievable celebrations from the British public,” he said, going so far as to suggest Joshua “should be knighted in the process.”

As for where in Britain, the debate is already live. Hearn admits Principality Stadium in Cardiff is his personal favourite – a closed roof, a guaranteed atmosphere – but accepts Wembley Stadium carries a different global weight.

Either way, he insists one thing: Joshua calls it.

“The reason that I’m doing this is because I want the fight in the U.K., but my instructions from Anthony Joshua are make sure this fight is in the U.K.,” Hearn said.

Dana vs Britain, and the size of the stage

The friction with White and WWE’s Nick Khan sits at the heart of the promoter’s frustration. Hearn paints them as the key figures driving the American push.

“Dana White is the guy, Nick Khan is the guy that have tried desperately to bring this fight to the U.S. and not to stage this fight in the U.K. You’ve seen his comments, Dana White does not want this fight in the U.K., so that’s been the big problem,” Hearn said.

What has shifted, in his view, is perception. By refusing to bend, he believes Joshua’s camp has forced everyone involved to confront just how big this could be on British soil.

“I think finally now people are starting to see—because they’ve had no choice, because we’ve stayed firm against everybody—this is massive in the U.K. and it will be,” Hearn said.

He talks about the “noise and the patriotism and the support of people online,” and stresses that Turki Alalshikh has noticed it too. The idea of staging Fury vs Joshua in front of a British crowd, in a British stadium, is no longer a sentimental option. It is the selling point.

Hearn doesn’t deal in understatement here. If they land it, he believes the country has never seen anything like it.

“We get this fight over the line for the U.K., wait until you see the reaction,” he said. “It could be the biggest sporting event ever in the U.K. We know it’s the biggest fight ever.”

The clock still ticks with no date, no stadium, no official confirmation. But the lines are drawn. America’s money on one side, Britain’s stage on the other – and Anthony Joshua, for now, standing exactly where he wants to fight.