Eddie Hearn has cautioned that a fight between Joshua vs Usyk live Stream on September 25 is not yet a confirmed date since contracts have still to be finalized, but he is optimistic that if it does go through, it would be in front of a full audience.
Hearn is hoping that Joshua will defend his WBA, WBO, IBO, and IBF heavyweight belts against Usyk, the former undisputed world cruiserweight champion, on that date at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London. But nothing is definite yet, and it is unknown how many people will attend.
“You have to be cautious what you say, I was just doing an Instagram live and I said: it looks like September 25 at Spurs and… bam… that is the preferred date,” Hearn added. “We have a call to finish any current points on the contract, which are all minor, and going ahead, that is the most probable date.
“It’s not cast iron, but it’s the preferred material.” We were scheduled to fight Pulev at Spurs before to the epidemic, so we’ve always wanted to perform a concert there. Hopefully, we’ll be able to make an official statement at some point.”
Boxing, according to Hearn, is screaming out for the return of capacity audiences as pandemic lockdown restrictions are relaxed. At the present, attendance numbers are severely limited, and although 40,000 people have been permitted to watch football matches at Wembley during the European Championships, and crowds have been allowed for Wimbledon, indoor sports are trailing behind.
“It’s a must,” Hearn remarked. “I recently returned from Mexico, and I was in Dallas a few weeks ago with 73,000. To be honest, what we’re witnessing here is sad. However, we must adhere to the regulations.
“If we don’t have a full audience by the end of September, we may as well pack up and leave.” This includes the Premier League and all football because they will be slaughtered if the government does not give up venues for the upcoming season. And, obviously, that timing will coincide with what we want to accomplish at Spurs.”
The question of whether boxing has been treated unfairly by the UK government in comparison to other sports is gathering momentum.
“Yeah, but isn’t that usually the case?” Hearn explained. “We [Matchroom] have been fortunate enough to have a few of test events with the snooker, but we’ve also been denied things when we were promised it might happen.
“But they have to obey the laws and the science, and it’s extremely difficult for anybody to make a balanced or right judgment with everything going on.
“But, when you look around the globe today, with our vaccination rate, you have to say: you have to open up. It’s absurd now.
“You observe an increase in instances, but not in hospital admissions, and everyone who is susceptible is being vaccinated… It’s extremely irritating now that we’re performing concerts all around the globe with either full or near-full capacities and we can’t achieve the same here… With luck, we’ll be ready to travel by September.”
