Summary
Joshua v Fury is on Friday 11 December 2026 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, and the ring walks are expected at about 1am, jump to Fight night on the Saturday. The fight was announced on 24 September, after a decade of failed attempts to make it. Cardiff got it because, jump to Why Cardiff Joshua’s terms required a UK venue, and the stadium has a roof. We are taking registrations of interest for VIP experiences, jump to With us on the night.
Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury will fight on Friday 11 December 2026 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. Turki Alalshikh announced it on 24 September. The fight will stream on Netflix around the world. The ring walks are expected at about 1am on the Saturday morning, UK time. A ring walk is the boxer’s entrance to the arena.
Whether a world title will be on the line is not settled. The Ring, the promoter’s own magazine, reported that the WBA’s “Super” belt would be contested. Other outlets have reported that no belt will be. The WBA is one of the four bodies that award world titles. Both men have held world titles twice before.
Is Joshua v Fury definitely happening?
The fight has been announced, and it is subject to a licence. The stadium company has applied to Cardiff Council to change its licence for the night, which is what allows a 1am ring walk. Objections can be lodged until 3 November, and a hearing could change or refuse the application. That is why the start time is still described as expected rather than fixed.
Alalshikh, who put the fight together, said that for 15 years nobody had been able to make it. The two men have been calling each other out since Joshua held the unified titles and Fury held the WBC belt. Unified titles are belts from more than one of the four bodies at once. The WBC is another of those bodies.
Why has it taken so long?
In June 2020 Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn announced a two-fight deal between them, on condition that each man won his next fight. In May 2021 an arbitrator ruled that Fury had to fight Deontay Wilder a third time first, and the deal collapsed. Joshua then lost his titles to Oleksandr Usyk in September 2021, and lost the rematch in August 2022.
In 2022 the fight was pencilled in for this same stadium, on 3 December. Fury set Joshua a deadline of 5pm on 26 September to sign the contract. The deadline passed with nothing signed, and Fury declared the fight over.
Fury lost to Usyk twice in 2024 and announced his retirement in January 2025.
In December 2025 Ring magazine said the fight would finally happen in 2026, after both men had taken warm-up fights. Joshua knocked out Jake Paul in Miami that month. Fury announced his return in January 2026 and beat Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 11 April. Joshua watched from ringside, and the fight between them was signed that month.
Both took one more fight in July. Fury beat Mariusz Wach in Thailand on 24 July, and Joshua knocked out Kristian Prenga in Jeddah the next day.
Why is the fight in Cardiff?
Joshua’s side agreed to a UK venue in the initial terms. Fury’s camp pushed for Madison Square Garden in New York before Cardiff was settled.
The Principality Stadium opened in June 1999 for that year’s Rugby World Cup. It holds about 74,000 people for rugby. The stadium’s own page for the fight gives a maximum of 80,000. It also has a fully retractable roof, and it was the second stadium in Europe to get one. If the roof is closed, the fight is in effect indoors.
Joshua has fought here twice. He stopped Carlos Takam in the tenth round in October 2017, after Kubrat Pulev pulled out injured twelve days before the fight. He then beat Joseph Parker on points in March 2018, in front of 78,000 people. It was the first time he had gone the full twelve rounds.
The stadium is a short walk from Cardiff Central station, with the city centre on its doorstep.
What happens on fight night?
The full running order hasn’t been published. The official announcement said the undercard, the fights on the card before the headline bout, would follow later. The card is the list of fights on the night. A live music performance is planned before the ring walks, which are expected at about 1am. The stadium is expected to stay open until about 3.30am.
The late start is for the television audience as much as the crowd. In the United States, 1am in Cardiff is Friday evening.
The fights on the card follow one another, with breaks and the music in between, so the timings can change through the night. The headline fight is the last one on.
How long is the fight, and how is it scored?
Twelve rounds of three minutes is the standard distance for a heavyweight headline fight, with a minute’s rest between each round. If it goes the distance, that is 36 minutes of boxing and 11 minutes of rest. That makes about 47 minutes from the first bell to the last, not counting any time the referee stops the clock. It can end at any moment before that.
Three judges sit at ringside and score every round. They use the ten-point must system. The boxer who wins the round gets ten points, and the other usually gets nine. A knockdown normally costs the fighter who went down a further point, so that round is scored 10-8.
At the end of twelve rounds each judge’s card is totalled, and the three results are compared. If all three judges have the same winner, the win is unanimous. If two have one fighter ahead and the third has the other, it is a split decision. A majority decision is when two judges pick the same fighter and the third scores the fight a draw.
Most fights that end early are decided without the cards. A knockout is when a boxer is down and can’t beat the referee’s count of ten. A technical knockout is also called a stoppage. It happens when the referee, the ringside doctor or the boxer’s corner decides he can’t safely go on. The corner is the team that works with him between rounds. Joshua’s win over Takam here in 2017 was a stoppage in the tenth round. His win over Parker the following year was decided by the judges, who scored it 118-110, 118-110 and 119-109.
Where do Joshua and Fury stand going in?
Fury will be 38 on the night and Joshua 37. Fury has promised the fastest knockout of Joshua’s career. Joshua’s reply at ringside in April was that he had punched Fury up when they were kids and would do it again.
Tyson Fury
He held the WBC title from 2020 to 2024 and the Ring magazine title twice. His last defeats were his two points losses to Usyk in 2024. Since his return he has beaten Makhmudov in April 2026 and Wach in July.
Anthony Joshua
He held the unified titles twice between 2017 and 2021. His last defeat was to Daniel Dubois in September 2024, by a fifth-round knockout. Since then he has knocked out Jake Paul in December 2025 and Kristian Prenga in July 2026.
Fight night with us
We are taking registrations of interest for VIP experiences on fight night. Everyone who registers a party size is contacted with the options as soon as they are confirmed. Seating, access, food and drink will all be confirmed before you book anything.
One person takes your enquiry and stays with it through to fight night. If you registered after the fight was signed in April, you are already on our list. This suits a company that wants its party in the stadium on the night without arranging any of it itself.
Chloe Burchell
Event Manager
Event Manager at Imperial Corporate Events. She’s hosted clients at everything from the Six Nations to the Eastern & Oriental Express, and she’s good company on the day.
