The eye-catching structure on the banks of the River Taff immediately became one of the biggest and best stadia in Europe, but it has only occasionally been used for boxing.

The retractable roof, absent from Wembley Stadium 150 miles south-east in London, has made the arena, now known as Principality Stadium, the perfect destination for big fights outside the summer.

And there have been none bigger than the all-British heavyweight blockbuster between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, confirmed for Cardiff on December 11, live on Netflix.

Before that, we've taken a look back at the other five times boxing has taken center stage on the pitch at Principality.

Welsh legend Joe Calzaghe was supposed to introduce boxing to Millennium Stadium and he was scheduled to do so in the summer of 2006. There were hopes that Calzaghe, who beat Jeff Lacy in Manchester six months earlier, would face Roy Jones Jr. in a glorious Cardiff homecoming but no deal could be agreed. In the end, a month before fight night, Calzaghe pulled out through injury which gave promoter Frank Warren a big decision to make. However, having worked so hard to book the stadium in the first place, Warren pressed on with the show which was headlined by the Commonwealth heavyweight title fight between Matt Skelton and Danny Williams. The likes of Amir Khan, Kevin Mitchell and Enzo Maccarinelli featured on the undercard while Gary Lockett and Ryan Rhodes clashed at middleweight.

It was not until April the following year that Calzaghe would finally make his debut at the national stadium but it turned out to be a mismatch which ended in anticlimax. His opponent Peter Manfredo was best known for his part in boxing reality show "The Contender" but he had little business being in the ring with anyone of Calzaghe’s class. Referee Terry O’Connor decided to wave off the fight midway through the third round but Manfredo and his team disputed the stoppage because he was still on his feet and not seriously hurt. One notable inclusion on a star-studded undercard was a young heavyweight called Derek Chisora, who boxed for the second time as a professional that night.

Just six months later, Calzaghe returned to the stadium and faced Mikkel Kessler in a super middleweight classic. Home favourite Calzaghe held The Ring and WBO belts at 168 pounds while Kessler brough his WBA and WBC belts to the Welsh capital for the showdown, which took place in front of more than 50,000 fans. This was undoubtedly a clash between the division’s two best fighters and they combined to produce a thriller which lived up to the pre-fight billing. Although it was competitive throughout, Calzaghe won 116-112 on two cards and 117-111 on the other with CompuBox noting the Welshman had thrown 1,010 punches to Kessler’s 585. This was Calzaghe's defining moment as a super middleweight and paved the way for his lucrative Stateside fights with Bernard Hopkins and Jones up at 175 pounds.

After the success of Calzaghe-Kessler it would be more than a decade before boxing returned to the stadium. This time, unified heavyweight champion Joshua put his WBA and IBF belts on the line against late stand-in Takam. “AJ” was scheduled to face his mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev but the Bulgarian withdrew just two weeks before the fight with a shoulder injury. The IBF went down their rankings and offered Takam the chance to shock the world. Despite a valiant effort, the Cameroonian was unable to prevent undefeated Joshua from forcing a 10th-round stoppage. With the roof closed on a cold October night, more than 78,000 fans packed in for the event which broke the world record for an indoor boxing attendance, previously held by Muhammad Ali vs. Leon Spinks in 1978.

Just as Calzaghe had done in 2007, Joshua returned for his second successive Principality Stadium outing within six months when he took on WBO champion Parker in a world heavyweight title unification the following March. The fight, which lacked any major flashpoints, was not a classic but Joshua did more than enough to claim a wide decision. Promoters Matchroom confirmed that the attendance of more than 78,000 had set a new standard for indoor boxing shows and the crowd that night remains the largest ever attendance at any Principality Stadium event. Just six months later, Joshua would return to Wembley to face Alexander Povetkin, attracting another 80,000 spectators. That four-fight stadium run, which began with Wladimir Klitschko in April 2017, meant Joshua had attracted a combined crowd more than 320,000 in just 17 months.