Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua has been one of the biggest fights possible in the world of boxing for years now, but has somehow never come to fruition. Even now, years past it’s best before date, the fight struggles to get across the finish line. Even with Saudi boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh pushing to make it a reality, there’s still a very good chance the fight falls apart.
Zuffa Boxing head Dana White’s participation in the fight has been controversial from the start. Anthony Joshua’s contract has a provision in it specifically barring White from promoting the fight. It also has a provision stating the fight must take place in the UK. Both those terms are being ignored by Alalshikh, who is looking to promote the fight under Zuffa’s banner in New York City.
Asked about the status of Joshua vs. Fury following UFC 330, White didn’t sound particularly optimistic.
In the post fight UFC Press Conference Dana White was asked about the Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury fight; When asked what deal he did for the fight:@DanaWhite: “We did the TV deal and the venue deal. Listen to make a fight two guys have to want to fight. Period. End of story.” pic.twitter.com/PMpKG8Cbjb
— Hamed (@HamedBoxing) August 16, 2026
“Listen, this f–king saga, we’ll see how this whole thing plays out,” he said. “They either want to fight or they don’t. I don’t know.”
White noted that he wasn’t involved in Anthony Joshua’s contract, only the Netflix and (rumored) Madison Square Garden deals.
“To make a fight, two guys have to want to fight,” White said. “Period. End of story. Contracts and this and that? There’s a lot of f–king money for grabs in this fight. Do you want to fight or do you not want to fight? I don’t give a s–t one way or the other. I’d be happy [if the fight was in the UK]. I don’t give a s–t. Do you want to fight or do you not want to fight?”
“The fight should have happened ten years ago, is it going to happen now? We’ll see.”
It’s clear that White and Alalshikh are in a war of wills with Anthony Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn, who want the Fury fight to take place in Britain. Hearn already has Alalshikh’s word in contract form that the fight will go down in the UK. But if Joshua really wants to fight Fury, White argues, he’d ignore the contract.
“We’ll fight to a point where they’ve breached the contract by doing it in America, or we come to an agreement,” Hearn said of the situation earlier this week. “Now, these people are our partners and our friends as well, so it’s very difficult. We wouldn’t have signed the agreement in its form if it was in America, so what we can’t do is just change it like that.”
We’ll see who blinks first on this one, or maybe no one blinks and the whole fight collapses. Again.