Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are tentatively slated to fight late this year, provided the two win their July tune-ups as it’s expected they will.
But location has become the major concern. The iconic Wembley Stadium in London is the hoped-for and most actually logical venue for the fight, but organizers will need Wembley’s 11 pm curfew to be lifted in order to actually land the bout, as a suitable main event start time is the main concern for money man Turki Alalshikh.
Sky Sports has more specifics on exactly what that issue comes down to, reporting that the 11 pm curfew for the venue would need to be lifted for the event, as a 1 am local time is desired for the main event ring walks.
For those wondering, that translates to an 8 pm Eastern / 5 pm Pacific start time for the main event in the United States. This is important because while the live event absolutely makes the most sense — and really only true sense — being in the United Kingdom, this is obviously a major, worldwide fight for streaming televised purposes, and you want the most viewers possible, whether the fight airs on DAZN or Netflix or whatever else.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said he supports the fight being held in London, but Alalshikh says he’s been told that later start time is “not possible,” with further talks to be held in the hopes of convincing Khan to lift the curfew for the evening.
If the fight is a no-go in London, there has been talk of it taking place in the United States, which could be interesting, because you’d still want a decent start time for the big United Kingdom crowd that will be tuning in, which could still equate to an 8 pm ET start time in the States, which would be unusual for a big event on American soil, where main events for major shows like this often don’t start until Midnight ET or sometimes a bit later.
An unignorable potential compromise would be for the fight to be held in Saudi Arabia, where Alalshikh will have permission to start the fight whenever he wants to make the most people happy with the televised start time.
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