Joshua, Fury fight officially set for Cardiff Dec 11 - Punch Newspapers

File: Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

The wait is over for boxing fans as Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have been confirmed to fight at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on December 11, PUNCH Sports Extra reports. BBC Sport reported on Thursday that the two heavyweights will finally settle their rivalry, following years of failed talks and public back-and-forth. Both men kept their plans on track with July warm-up wins. Joshua headed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and was floored twice in the first round, the opening knockdown coming inside 20 seconds. He responded by stopping Albania’s Kristian Prenga in the second round. The 36-year-old was boxing for the first time since surviving a car crash in Nigeria that killed his close friends, Sina Ghami and Latif “Latz” Ayodele. Fury took a calmer route in Pattaya, Thailand, where he stopped Mariusz Wach in the seventh round. The 37-year-old faced an opponent aged 46, and the fight drew about 1,500 spectators without a television broadcast.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google The choice of Cardiff followed a dispute over location. Joshua and his promoter, Eddie Hearn, had favoured Wembley Stadium after the Jeddah win. Joshua’s contract with the Saudi organisers backing the event, however, obliged him to fight in Britain, and staging the bout in the United States would have meant reopening the deal. Itauma can become unbeatable — Hrgovic JUST IN: Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury to fight in Cardiff December 11 PHOTOS: Anthony Joshua endures ‘torture’ training ahead of Fury fight A proposed New York date at Madison Square Garden was dropped. Cardiff is familiar ground for Joshua, who beat Carlos Takam there in 2017 and Joseph Parker in 2018. Preparations are already under way in Dubai, where Joshua posted footage on Instagram of himself on a Pravilo machine. The device, rooted in Slavic and Russian training traditions, suspended him with limbs spread wide while he twisted his midriff close to 180 degrees. British newspapers, including the Daily Mail and The Sun, labelled it “torture” training. Joshua joked in his caption, “When the instructor says, relax and breathe.” Hearn believes the stakes could hardly be higher. Speaking after Pat Brown beat John Hedges on September 19, he said Joshua’s “whole career comes down to this” fight. “There is a desperation to win this fight, and this is why sport is the greatest. I have never wanted to win a fight so badly,” he said. Peter Akinbo Peter, who has been covering sports for PUNCH for close to two years, focuses on combat sports reporting, special features and human angle stories

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