The distance between Manchester and London doesn’t do justice to just how far Tyson Fury has come since the last time he fought in his home country.

BoxingScene.com has confirmed that organizers of the event expect a capacity crowd of 94,000 at Wembley Stadium for Fury’s WBC heavyweight title defense against Dillian Whyte on April 23 in London. An audience of that size would establish a new record for boxing attendance in the 21st century.

That standard was established in April 2017, when Wembley officials have confirmed that a crowd of roughly 88,000 attended the fantastic heavyweight title bout between British superstar Anthony Joshua and retired champ Wladimir Klitschko. The Joshua-Klitschko card also attracted the second-largest boxing crowd in British history.

Warren announced March 2, the day tickets for Fury-Whyte went on sale, that 85,000 were bought within three hours.

The last time Fury fought in England, he appeared on the undercard of a WBO junior welterweight title bout between American champion Maurice Hooker and England’s Terry Flanagan. That event, which took place in June 2018 at Manchester Arena, was built around Flanagan, who, like Fury, is from Manchester.

Fury’s most recent appearance in the United Kingdom occurred in August 2018, when he appeared on the Carl Frampton-Luke Jackson undercard at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Each of Fury’s past five fights have been held in the United States – four in Las Vegas and one in Los Angeles. The 33-year-old Fury resides at least part time these days in Henderson, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas.

The 6-foot-9, 276-pound Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) will make his second defense of the WBC belt he won from Deontay Wilder when he encounters England’s Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), his mandatory challenger.

ESPN Pay-Per-View and BT Sport Box Office will offer Fury-Whyte as the main event of a four-fight pay-per-view show in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively.

While Fury-Whyte is expected to establish a new mark for boxing attendance in the 21st century, it won’t come close to the overall record.

Though there is some debate among historians, the largest crowd believed to have assembled for a boxing card reportedly reached 135,132 for the middleweight bout in which Tony Zale knocked out Billy Pryor in the ninth round in August 1941 at Juneau Park in Milwaukee. Admission to the Zale-Pryor card was free.

The standard for crowds during boxing’s modern era, and for paid attendance overall, is 132,274 – the announced figure for the Julio Cesar Chavez-Greg Haugen 140-pound title clash Chavez won by fifth-round TKO in February 1993 at Aztec Stadium in Mexico City.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.