Ирэх арванхоёрдугаар сарын 11-нд Кардифф хотын “Principality” цэнгэлдэхэд болох хүнд жингийн тулаан нь орон нутгийн үзэгчдийн хувьд шөнийн цагаар явагдах тул логистикийн томоохон асуудал үүсгэж байна.
Промоутер Эдди Хирний мэдээлснээр, гол тулааны ринг рүү гарах үйл явц шөнийн 01:00-01:30 цагийн орчимд эхлэх бөгөөд 02:00 цаг хүртэл сунжирч болзошгүй байна. Энэхүү хуваарь нь АНУ-ын зах зээлийн телевизийн цагт нийцүүлсэн шийдвэр бөгөөд Кардифф хотоос Лондон, Бирмингем, Манчестер чиглэлийн галт тэрэг шөнө дундаас өмнө зогсдог тул 70,000 гаруй үзэгч буцах тээврийн хэрэгсэлгүй хоцрох эрсдэлтэй байна.
Энтони Жошуа тулааныг эх орондоо зохион байгуулахын тулд санхүүгийн алдагдал хүлээхэд бэлэн байсан ч, эцсийн дүндээ Netflix болон Турки Аль-Айхши нарын тогтоосон цагийн хуваарьт үзэгчид хохирогч болон үлдэж байна. Мөн энэхүү үйл явдал нь Эдди Хирний нөлөө буурч, Дана Уайт зэрэг бусад промоутеруудын оролцоо нэмэгдэж буйг харууллаа.
Орон нутгийн үзэгчдэд хүндрэлтэй энэхүү цагийн хуваарь нь тулааныг АНУ-ын үзэгчдийн оргил цагт тааруулах зорилготой байгаа нь үзэгчдийг бодлогоос гадуур орхиж буйг илтгэж байна. Аюулгүй байдлын үүднээс Кардиффийн холбогдох албаныхан энэхүү нөхцөл байдалд хүндхэн сорилттой тулгарч байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
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Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua secured Cardiff for the Tyson Fury event, but the live ticket buyers got sold out to an overseas broadcast clock. Staging the bout at Principality Stadium on Friday, December 11, keeps the spectacle on domestic soil while treating the local crowd like unpaid extras for Netflix.
Hearn admitted the main event ring walks will not occur until 1:00 a.m. or 1:30 a.m., refusing to rule out a 2:00 a.m. start.
“I think that’s going to be decided by Netflix and Turki Alalshikh. It’s my understanding it will be around 1:00 a.m., 1:30 a.m. But again, if it creeps to 2, I don’t know,” Hearn said on Thursday.
Hearn spins the absurd schedule as a festive night out, but seven hours on plastic seats inside a freezing Welsh stadium is an ordeal. Mainline rail services from Cardiff Central to London Paddington, Birmingham, and Manchester shut down before midnight. Pushing the final bell past 2:30 a.m. leaves over 70,000 spectators dumped onto the streets with zero regional transit, extortionate hotel rates, and closed stations.
The entire exercise exposes who genuinely controls the event. Joshua supposedly gave up purse money to bring the contest home, yet domestic fans take the physical hit. A 1:00 a.m. ring walk in Wales serves prime time East Coast and West Coast viewers in America. The streaming giant gets its prime evening window across the Atlantic, while the paying British public gets an exhausting graveyard shift.
Cardiff licensing authorities and emergency services now face an impossible public safety crunch. Demanding supporters pay record ticket prices only to freeze in the dark until 3:00 a.m. shows where paying fans fit into modern streaming priorities. Principality Stadium provides the arena backdrop and the decibels, but the actual paying spectator sits dead last on the priority sheet.
Taking a smaller purse just to hoist the Union Jack over a stadium, only to surrender the entire operational clock to US television, makes the whole thing look like a vanity project.
Hearn and Joshua wanted the PR glory of shouting that they protected the domestic faithful from an American trip. In reality, they handed those supporters a far worse logistical nightmare than a planned weekend flight to New York. In New York, the fight would have taken place at Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center at 11:00 p.m. local time, supported by a 24-hour subway system, endless accommodation, and proper infrastructure built for late nights.
Instead, they drop over 70,000 spectators into central Cardiff in freezing December, with the ring walks landing between 1:30 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. The last trains back to London, Birmingham, and Manchester depart Cardiff Central before midnight. The hotels in the city center will gouge everyone lucky enough to find a room, and the rest get shoved out into the cold at 3:00 a.m. with nowhere to go.
It exposes who genuinely calls the shots. Netflix and Turki Alalshikh hold the checkbook, so the broadcast runs on US East and West Coast prime time regardless of geography. Treating British ticket buyers like unpaid background extras to provide crowd noise for American couches is bad business. Staging it in the States would have been honest business; dragging it to Wales under these conditions is pure ego overriding basic common sense.
For months he pounded his chest about protecting Joshua, calling Dana White a clout chaser and swearing on every camera that Zuffa promoting this fight was contractually impossible.
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Then Netflix drops the official press release, and there it is in black and white: Turki Alalshikh and Dana White co-promoting the biggest British heavyweight event of the century, with Hearn shoved completely out of the frame.
Hearn thought he was the architect of modern British boxing. He spent over a decade guiding Joshua from the 2012 Olympics through the stadium runs at Wembley and Cardiff. To watch an MMA promoter walk in from Las Vegas, partner directly with the Saudis and Netflix, and commandeer Joshua on British soil has to eat Hearn alive.
It completely shatters the illusion of leverage Hearn claimed he had. He fought tooth and nail to reject New York so he could parade a domestic triumph, only to end up with zero say over the show, a 2:00 a.m. ring walk that alienates his own ticket buyers, and Dana White sitting at the head of the table. Hearn traded away his purse leverage to get the venue, and in return, the real money brokers kicked him to the curb and handed the keys to the man he mocked all summer.
