Tyson Fury Says Joshua Fight Is Set for Madison Square Garden. Eddie Hearn Says Not So Fast.

Fury posts the poster, but the ink isn't dry

Tyson Fury took to Instagram this week with a mocked-up fight poster showing himself and Anthony Joshua against the Manhattan skyline, declaring their long-rumored heavyweight showdown will happen at Madison Square Garden. "What a place NYC, & what a venue MSG, & what a fight Fury vs AJ, the land of opportunity," Fury wrote, adding "Iconic! not long now guys," according to Al Jazeera and The Independent.

No official date has been confirmed by either camp. November 20 is the date under discussion, according to multiple reports including the Times of India and The Independent. But Fury's own promotional post is not a formal announcement, and Anthony Joshua has made no matching statement.

Hearn says the deal isn't done

Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn, who represents Joshua, threw cold water on the idea that anything is locked in. "There's nothing agreed right now," Hearn said Tuesday, September 1, according to The Independent and LADBible. "We will need to make a decision this week. They have our terms, it's up to them."

Hearn said his side received the U.S. fight terms three days earlier, putting that exchange around August 29, according to the Times of India. He described the pace of talks as urgent: "We're speaking multiple times a day, but we're running out of time. They're talking of a press conference next week. It's Tuesday, do you know what I mean?"

The sticking point is money, specifically taxes. The fight was originally supposed to happen in the UK, likely Wembley Stadium, according to The Independent and LADBible. Sela, the Saudi state-owned promotional company financing the bout, pushed to move it to New York to capture a bigger American audience for Netflix, which is broadcasting the fight. Moving the bout to U.S. soil means Joshua would owe more in taxes, and Hearn has demanded his purse be increased to make up the difference. "We don't want to do the fight in the US, but we also understand it has to work for everybody," Hearn said, adding that his side has been "banging our head against the wall on that for the last two months."

Hearn's stated preference is clear: "Our dream and our hope is they just turn around and go, 'This is too messy, we'll just do it in Wembley.' But they're adamant, adamant, that they want the fight in America."

A messier timeline than Fury's post suggests

Fury and Joshua agreed in principle to fight back in April, according to The Daily Mirror. Both then took tune-up bouts in July: Fury forced Polish veteran Mariusz Wach to quit on his stool in Pattaya, Thailand, in front of roughly 1,500 fans, according to Al Jazeera. Joshua survived two knockdowns to stop Kristian Prenga in the second round on July 25 in Jeddah, according to the Times of India, with Hearn confirming Joshua was paid in full for that bout.

An August 18 post from the account Source of Boxing, citing Mail Sport, claimed the fight was "reportedly SIGNED" for Friday, November 20 at Madison Square Garden. GB News ran a similar headline the same day declaring the city and date "confirmed." Neither claim held up. Hearn's September 1 comments, made two weeks later, explicitly stated "there's nothing agreed right now" and that his team was still negotiating purse terms. That represents a meaningful gap between what got reported as done in mid-August and what Joshua's own promoter says is still unresolved as of this week.

Fury himself added to the confusion. Just days before his celebratory MSG post, he told his Instagram followers the fight looked dead: "it doesn't look like they're going to find the fight and it doesn't look like it's going to happen. All because Eddie Hearn and that want more money. Keep running you little cowards," according to LADBible.

Fury has a backup plan either way

In an interview with Gareth A. Davies reported by The Daily Mirror, Fury said he has "quite a few champions on standby" if the Joshua fight collapses. "I am the money in the room and all of these people want to fight me," Fury said. He added that if a deal isn't finalized in November, he'll fight someone else, but insisted he'll honor whatever contract terms he's already signed: "If I did not want to do something, I would not have signed the contract to do it."

The two fighters have a long history of near-misses. Talks for a 2021 fight broke down over terms, and a U.S. judge later ruled Fury had to face Deontay Wilder in a trilogy bout instead, according to Al Jazeera. Fury, who turned 38 in August, has lost only twice as a professional, both to Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk in 2024, before announcing his return to boxing in January.

Hearn set his own deadline for "this week" to get a deal done. Whether that produces a signed contract, a press conference, or another Fury social media post walking things back remains to be seen.