Boxer Anthony Joshua is set to mark his comeback to the ring with a surprise heavyweight bout against Jake Paul in Miami.

The former world heavyweight champion and YouTuber-turned-boxer will face off in a match consisting of eight three-minute rounds, with both boxers using 10oz gloves.

The 36-year-old hasn’t fought since September 2024, when he suffered a shock loss to British compatriot Daniel Dubois at Wembley in the fifth round of their IBF world heavyweight title fight.

Joshua, who goes in with a record of 28 wins and four losses, promised the American “no mercy” ahead of his comeback.

“I took some time out, and I’m coming back with a mega show. It’s a big opportunity for me. Whether you like it or not, I’m here to do massive numbers, have big fights and break every record whilst keeping cool, calm and collected,” he said.

“Mark my words, you’ll see a lot more fighters take these opportunities in the future. I’m about to break the internet over Jake Paul’s face.”

If Jake Paul wins, he’ll be in the running for a title, according to his manager, Nakisa Bidarian, chief executive of Most Valuable Promotions.

He said: “For Jake it’s doing the impossible, silencing the doubters and putting himself in a position to be in conversation for a belt, and he gets that if he beats Anthony Joshua.

“And for Joshua it’s pretty simple: he’s been out for quite a bit of time, he comes back and does one of the biggest events in the world, and if he knocks out Jake Paul he will be idolised by many within boxing.”

He continued: “What we’ve accomplished in four years with Jake, with no amateur background, with no Olympic pedigree, makes everyone kind of take a step back and say, ‘What is going on here? How is this possible?’

“It angers people in boxing that we can come in and get as much attention and notoriety as we have, as quickly as we have.”

Paul was due to face Gervonta Davis this month, but the bout was cancelled after a civil lawsuit was filed against the WBA lightweight champion.

The 28-year-old, who has a 12-1 record, last fought at heavyweight when he beat Mike Tyson by unanimous decision in November last year, in what was the then 58-year-old’s first fight in 19 years, before following that up in June with another unanimous decision victory over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

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Paul labelled the fight in Miami as “Judgement Day.”

“A professional heavyweight fight against an elite world champion in his prime. When I beat Anthony Joshua, every doubt disappears and no one can deny me the opportunity to fight for a world title.

“To all my haters, this is what you wanted. To the people of the United Kingdom, I am sorry. On Friday, December 19, under the lights in Miami, live globally only on Netflix, the torch gets passed and Britain’s Goliath gets put to sleep.”

The government is reportedly set to ban the resale of tickets for live events above their face value.

Music and sport fans have long complained about live event tickets being quickly bought up only to be immediately relisted at grossly inflated prices.

The process is often carried out using bots – automated apps that repeatedly mimic customers to sweep up large numbers of tickets as soon as they’re released.

The people operating them can be based anywhere in the world.

A government consultation had sought views on a proposed cap of 30% above cost, but The Guardian and Financial Times say ministers are expected to set the resale limit at face value.

Service fees charged will also reportedly be capped.

The government refused to comment when approached by Sky News, but it’s believed an announcement could come on Wednesday.

Labour pledged in their manifesto to put an end to rip-off tickets and repeated the promise when they came to power.

But there has been little word on the policy since, with seven months having gone by since a consultation ended.

Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, Iron Maiden, and Radiohead were among acts who last week urged the government to follow through and “restore faith in the ticketing system”.

The Football Supporters’ Association, some ticketing firms, and groups representing the theatre and music industries also signed the statement.

Ticketmaster parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, said it “fully supports” banning resale above face value and added that it already had such a policy.

Some UK secondary ticketing sites already have a face value cap or limit the mark-up. Others allow prices far in excess of face value.

For example, Viagogo and Stubhub are listing tickets for Radiohead’s Saturday show in London from around £400 for seating and from over £700 for standing.

The official price was £85 for standing and between £75 to £195 for seating (plus fees).

Those prices are almost pocket change compared with some of the amounts quoted earlier this year for the Oasis reunion shows – consumer group Which? found tickets as high as £4,442.

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StubHub International warned a price cap would “condemn fans to take risks to see their favourite live events”.

“With a price cap on regulated marketplaces, ticket transactions will move to black markets,” said a spokesperson.

“When a regulated market becomes a black market, only bad things happen for consumers. Fraud, fear, and zero recourse.”

Viagogo made similar claims and said regulated price caps has “repeatedly failed fans”.

“In countries like Ireland and Australia fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites,” said a spokesperson.

He’s played Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Strange, and even voiced The Grinch but acting opposite a seven-foot (2.1m) crow may be one of the strangest roles Benedict Cumberbatch has taken on. 

Speaking about his new film, The Thing With Feathers, he admits it’s “a very odd job, there’s no getting away from it”.

If the vision of Cumberbatch wrestling with a giant bird sounds like the sort of amusingly surreal movie you fancy taking a look at next week, it’s important to understand that this is no comedy.

While the film, based on Max Porter’s eclectic novella Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, the film is at times disturbingly funny, but mostly it is an incredibly emotional take on the heartbreaking way we all process grief.

Cumberbatch plays a man whose wife has died suddenly, leaving him with their two young boys. The story itself is split into three parts – dad, boys and crow.

Crow – voiced by David Thewlis – is a figment of dad’s imagination, a sort of “unhinged Freudian therapist” for him, according to Porter.

Cumberbatch, a father of three, said this certainly wasn’t a role he wanted to think about when he returned to his own family each night.

“I didn’t take it home, I didn’t talk about it…You have to work fast when you’re a father of three with a busy home life, you know, it’s very immediate the need they have of you, so you don’t go in and talk about your day crying your eyes out on a sofa with a crow punching you in the face.”

Since Porter’s award-winning work was first published in 2015 it has built a cult following.

Using text, dialogue and poetry to explore grief from various characters’ perspectives, the author says the subject matter is universal.

“Most of us are deeply eccentric in one way or another, like my father-in-law, apparently a very rational, blokey bloke, who’s like ‘when my mum died, a wren landed on the window and I knew it was my mum’.

“Grief puts us into these states where we are more attuned to the natural world and particularly more attuned to symbols and signs. So, imagining a crow moving in with the family actually makes a lot of sense to people, whereas, weirdly, five steps to getting better or get well soon or a hallmark card or whatever doesn’t make much sense to the people when you’re in that storm of pain.”

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While the film sees Cumberbatch portray a firestorm of emotions, he says he feels it’s important to tackle weighty issues on screen.

“It is a universal experience, in one way or another you’re ‘gonna lose someone that you love during your life.”

The film, he says, explores grief through a male prism.

“At a time when there’s a lot of very troubling influences on men without female presence in their lives, this thing of scapegoating and seeing the other as a threat, all of that comes into play within the allowance of grief to be a messy, scary, intimidating, chaotic, unruly and out of control place to exist as a man.

“This is a film that just leans into the idea that it’s alright to have feelings, you bury them or hide them at your peril.”

The Thing With Feathers is out in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 21 November.