LAS VEGAS — According to Joe Markowski, a TV executive who wants to broadcast the fight, a potential heavyweight match between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua would be “probably the biggest fight you could make in boxing.”
Should this bout be scheduled, it would rival the fight of the year between American welterweight rivals Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr., which is expected to take place in November. In addition, a double-whammy of marquee events would help bring boxing back into the mainstream consciousness.
As previously reported by Insider, Crawford vs. Spence could take place in Las Vegas in November.
According to sources close to this bout, little has changed, and it remains a likely addition to the end-of-year program for combat sports.
ESPN recently stated that Fury vs. Joshua might also take place in 2022, suggesting an early December date at Cardiff’s 75,000-seat Principality Stadium. If the heavyweight bout is to occur, Fury’s broadcast partner BT Sport may need to collaborate with Joshua’s DAZN.
The largest pay-per-view boxing event in British history.
During their September 2021 heavyweight title bout, Anthony Joshua delivers a punch to Oleksandr Usyk.
Julian Finney / Getty Photographic
Markowski, CEO of DAZN North America, told Insider this week at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that although it is “too early to talk about AJ and Fury,” the fight would be “the largest pay-per-view event in British boxing history.”
Joshua is in dire need of a comeback victory after suffering back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk, who Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez referred to as “the best fighter in the world” in an interview with Insider this week.
Fighting Fury, who has never been defeated, is a remarkable challenge, given his resounding trilogy triumph over America’s concussive puncher Deontay Wilder and his April knockout of Dillian Whyte.
“Is it significant that Joshua has lost three times and twice in a row? “I don’t believe so,” Markowski told. “I believe it is about the narrative and the components of the conflict in terms of its significance to the British public.”
Joe Markowski.
Image courtesy of John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images
Markowski asserts that boxing discussions are not yet complete. If and when they are, he intends to begin discussions with BT Sport as one of the broadcasters slated to air the event.
DAZN ‘obviously’ wants Joshua vs. Fury to to place.
Clearly, we want this to occur, Markowski stated.
Markowski remarked that the fight’s commercial attractiveness has changed since 2020, when it was first talked seriously.
Joshua held three of the division’s four major titles that year and had not yet lost to Usyk. Meanwhile, Fury held the WBC heavyweight title.
This would have been the first time since Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in 1999 that an undisputed champion has been crowned in boxing’s glamour division.
Tyson Fury enjoys his latest boxing victory.
Mikey Williams/Top Rank, Inc. image via Getty Images
“I believe it makes sense for various reasons currently… “It makes sense, but perhaps not for the reasons we believed it would make sense a year and a half ago,” the executive added.
Joshua’s return attempt is risky, but Markowski believes the heavyweight has little to lose.
“There is no uncontested status, and there is no unbeaten record to maintain, so why wait? “The public is still concerned,” he stated. “Narrative overcomes all other nonsense, and the narrative for this war is enormous.
“Now that a stadium has been booked for the December fight, we will proceed if promoters give us the green light.”
