Matchroom's Eddie Hearn confirmed two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will take on fellow Brit Tyson Fury later this year on Netflix.
“Signed, sealed, delivered! AJ v Fury is on!” Eddie Hearn, Joshua's promoter at Matchroom, wrote on Instagram.
The 36-year-old Joshua will fight Kristian Prenga, an Albanian with 20 victories and one loss, on July 25 in Riyadh in the headline bout in “The Comeback,” which is part of the Esports World Cup Festival.
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It's understood Fury and Joshua will clash later in the year in a match-up sure to be at Wembley, in front of 90,000 fans.
While such a spectacle will attract eyeballs, the timing of the fight further demonstrates, that too often the biggest fights in the sport take place too late.
Along with Joshua and Fury airing on the global streamer, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather will also be broadcast on Netflix, in a rematch of a clash that also took too long to make.
Fury could be 38 when the pair throws down and Joshua 37. Each are well out of contention for a world title at this stage of their careers and the bout is viewed more as entertainment and a claim for bragging rights.
Even though Fury and Joshua both fought and lost to champion Oleksandr Usyk at arguably the peak of their careers, most observers of the sport overseas clamoured for the all-English bout.
And promoters will make a pretty penny out of it no doubt, yet it will pale in comparison to what the figure would have been if it was for a title.
Both fighters held world titles twice during their careers.
Fury was world heavyweight champion during two periods – he first became the unified champion (WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO) after defeating Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015, holding it until vacating in 2016.
He returned to win the WBC title in February 2020 and held it until 2024.
Joshua also held the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO titles twice between 2017 and 2021.
It's clear the two fighters favoured keeping their belts instead of risking it all – and that's fair enough.
But the fact they had close to a decade to get in the ring and only ever considered it in their late thirties as a late pay day once the title window had closed, highlights one of the reasons Zuffa Boxing wants to change the state of boxing.
If the boxing system was centralised in a UFC type of model, Fury and Joshua would've fought years ago at their peak of their powers for a title, in a move that would've satisfied fight fans at the time, but left fighters with little leverage when their careers slowed down.
Once fans have seen two fighters throw hands during their strongest years, that event loses its viability down the road. The flipside of that argument is that a memorable fight between two champions will tend to trigger a rematch or a trilogy to squeeze the juice out of the product when it's most ripe.
The pushback from traditional promoters over Zuffa's place in the sport is based purely on money.
Traditional promoters approach a star boxer's career as a slow bleed, while the Zuffa model looks to strike while the iron is hot.
The way of doing business in boxing is changing and Jake Paul's recent rise in the sport has put more emphasis on fighting as an entertainment industry.
A boxer's right to a big fight because of his record holds less weight now.
Paul was heavily criticised, and still is, for cherry-picking opponents and neglecting the traditional path to banking big pay days in the sport.
But one must ask how Joshua v Fury is any different.
The bout's credibility is built on the careers each man has forged in the past. But as of now, both men are closing in on retirement and have nothing to put on the line.
The fight's selling point is based on the two British heavyweight personalities, rather than titles – a formula Paul continues to milk and profit from.
The biggest selling fights have always relied on backstory, personalities and titles to appeal to fans.
However, the more Netflix involves itself in the sport, the more major money-spinning events will draw on entertainment value rather than athletic achievement.
While the global streamer did air the Crawford v Canelo's undisputed clash last year, the Paul/Netflix formula could add a WWE flavour to the sport, which places more significance on entertainment, rather than titles.
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