Fireworks shot into the air above the stage at the British Airways ARC in London on Wednesday, but the real surprise came from the two men walking toward each other. Tyson Fury, 38, entered in an emerald-green suit stitched with crowns; Anthony Joshua, 36, followed in a grey tracksuit and sunglasses, calm as ever. After a decade of mutual mockery conducted mostly through cameras and social media, the two British heavyweights were finally in the same room, preparing to fight at Cardiff's Principality Stadium on 11 December. What followed was not the fireworks anyone expected.

Fury called Joshua "a role model and poster boy for British boxing," admitting he often found himself defending his old rival to strangers in the street. Joshua, in turn, described the occasion as "breathtaking," acknowledging that the rivalry had already caused real arguments in British pubs and even divided families. At the face-off, rather than trading threats, Joshua reached out and pretended to tickle Fury's stomach, drawing laughter from a crowd that had packed the balcony chanting his name. The mood mattered partly because the fight itself had been in doubt just days earlier, with contractual disputes over the promotion threatening to derail it entirely.

That the two men could sit together and discuss a pint afterward suggested something had shifted: two long-serving rivals, now in the later stretch of storied careers, seemed to be measuring not each other but the distance they had both travelled since a little-remembered sparring session in 2010, when Joshua was still an amateur. Whether nostalgia will survive the opening bell is another matter. Fans in Cardiff may watch a main event starting near 2am local time to satisfy American broadcasters, a reminder of how global this once-local rivalry has become.