“Everybody wants to do the fight in New York apart from Anthony Joshua and me. We’re under a huge amount of pressure,” Hearn said to the Punch podcast.
“We’re being told by Turki Alashikh and those guys, look, Netflix particularly, you know, they really want to do the fight in the US.”
Hearn acknowledged the commercial argument for taking Joshua and Fury to America while stressing that it was not the deal Joshua originally accepted.
“I don’t agree with their arguments, but I’m not paying the money. Do you know what I mean? But we wouldn’t have signed the contract if the fight was in America,” said Hearn.
This stance places Joshua’s team in a strong position. Organizers who believe New York generates substantially more revenue can compensate Joshua for giving up the UK location.
Hearn has made it clear that organizers cannot simply announce the switch and expect Joshua to go along with it.
“If they announce that fight without an agreement in place to change the venue, there will be no fight,” Hearn said. “And we ain’t bluffing.”
Hearn’s later comments show this dispute is not an absolute refusal to fight in America. His strategy aims to make changing the location so expensive that keeping the event in Britain becomes the easier option.
“If you want to do it in America, you got to pay us all this money to change because we’re not really bothered about the money. We want it in England.”
Hearn then revealed where the negotiation can ultimately lead.
“We want to make it so much money they just go, ‘Oh, do you know what? Let’s just do it in England.’ That’s our dream scenario. But they might pay the money, and then we got no choice.”
The issue becomes where the breaking point sits. Joshua can demand a substantial premium because his approval is required. Pushing too far, however, risks eliminating the financial advantage organizers see in New York.
Moving the fight away from Britain would also give Joshua an explanation to UK fans. Hearn can argue they fought to keep the event at home, accepting New York only after receiving an offer too lucrative to turn down.
The harder Hearn pushes now, the easier that explanation becomes later.
New York may be the preferred location for the event’s financial backers, yet Joshua’s side controls the cost of the agreement. The remaining question is how badly they want his signature.
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