Anthony Joshua’s heavyweight title defence against Oleksandr Usyk will be one of the biggest boxing events of 2021.
That means that finding a state-of-the-art venue to host the fight was always going to be of paramount importance.
Thankfully the recently-built Tottenham Hotspur Stadium ticks all the boxes for a contest of this size and stature.
Located in Tottenham, North London the 62,303-capacity Spurs stadium opened on April 3, 2019 with an overall construction cost of around £1BILLION.
The focus when building was to design a multi-purpose stadium that wouldn’t just hold an increased capacity and look nice to onlookers, but would also prove to be hyper modern in terms of facilities and matchday experience.
Research was carried out around football’s most atmospheric stadiums such as Anfield in Liverpool where The Kop is renowned for its noise, as well as taking inspiration from the Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion.
They even brought in U2’s sound engineers in order to ensure that the stadium’s acoustic set-up was designed with the primary intention of generating an atmosphere ready for some of sport’s biggest events.
As a result the single-tier south stand sits less than five metres away from the pitch, closer than any stand in the Premier League, while no front row seat is further than eight metres from the action.
The stands as a whole are angled at a relative steep 35 degrees which ensures that all fans are as close to the action as possible and that the atmosphere is reminiscent of Dortmund’s world-renowned Yellow Wall.
The atmosphere is also aided by the retractable roof which can generate an electric aura by trapping the noise and energy within the stadium, while even when the roof isn’t in place a lip around the roof edge creates a goldfish bowl which amplifies the noise enormously and sends it back into the stadium rather than out into the air.
As well boasting a cheese room for executive attendees, an in-house bakery, heated seats with USB ports and a microbrewery with pints that magically fill up from the bottom like something from Star Trek, it’s the retractable pitch that will make Joshua v Usyk work.
Exactly the same size at the Wembley Stadium turf, the pitch at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium weighs a staggering 9000 tonnes – more than the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
That is due to it being in three pitch-long steel sections, 68 electric motors and rolls along rails using 168 wheels to ensure that it is truly multi-purpose.
It takes around 25 minutes to switch between the grass pitch and the artificial surface which is used for NFL matches and will form the foundation of the surface for Joshua’s heavyweight title defence with Usyk.
More than 60,000 supporters are expected to be in attendance in N17 on Saturday, December 25 with fans filling up the stands and also putting the retractable pitch to use with on-field spectators.
With the state-of-the-art arena ready to host one of the biggest sporting events of the year you can guarantee that the atmosphere will be electric.
BETTING SPECIAL – GET ANTHONY JOSHUA AT 25/1 TO BEAT OLEKSANDR USYK OR 60-1 TO WIN IN ROUNDS 1-6