Eddie Hearn has said “there’s quite a few things happening” regarding the return of Anthony Joshua.
The former heavyweight champion, who suffered a devastating defeat in September to Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium, was hopeful of a quick turnaround into a rematch with IBF champion Dubois, but suffered an injury – believed to be to his arm – and could not start training camp again quickly enough to make a projected February 22 date for the return.
“Daniel Dubois, I think, will fight AJ this summer, if we want. And AJ wants to fight [Tyson] Fury,” said Hearn.
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“We know right now [since Fury retired] that’s not an option. But I just want to throw a few other names into the mix and say, because we’re in March and he’ll probably fight in July, or something like that. So I just want to get the flavor. The flavor in Saudi [where Joshua was in attendance for Joseph Parker-Martin Bakole as part of the DAZN broadcast team] was, ‘I want Fury. If I can’t get Fury, I’d like Dubois.’”
Hearn then said: “And I think everyone’s dangerous. So why not fight for the world heavyweight title?
“’You could fight [Agit] Kabayel, you could fight [Zhilei] Zhang, you could fight Bakole, you could fight Parker.’ Parker’s as dangerous as Dubois, in my opinion. And he’s got no world heavyweight title. So we’ll have a conversation, and we’re going to start making some decisions.”
Asked about the February 22 date, Hearn said Joshua would not have been able to have had a long enough camp.
“And then you don’t do anything for a month, and then it [the injury] is playing up. That’s why, despite people thinking that he ducked February 22nd, there’s absolutely no way he could ever be anywhere near ready for February 22nd,” said Hearn.
Asked about Joshua’s fitness now, Hearn said his client “was firing on all cylinders”.
