Anthony Joshua is facing his latest career setback after being knocked out by Daniel Dubois last year. While Joshua has no immediate plans of retiring from the sport, and still has ambitions to conquer, his Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn emphasizes to Sky Sports the importance of them matching Joshua correctly in this next outing so they can try to make a big for him next summer.
“We’ve got to choose carefully for the next fight and I think the best way in all of this is just to be honest and say
the next fight will be a comeback fight to build into a roll of the dice next summer,” Hearn said. “We want that to be against Tyson Fury. If it’s not, it’s going to be a massive fight.”
Hearn would admit that those plans to fight Fury are still largely up to what Fury will be willing to entertain by next summer, and while they will still aim for a top-15 kind of opponent for Joshua in the interim, they will not be looking at fighters nearing the top of that list, excluding names like Dubois, Usyk, Itauma and Parker as he says another loss for Joshua at this stage would be devastating.
If Joshua gets through his next scheduled fight with flying colors, the plan will be to throw him back in what Hearn says could be one last roll of the dice for Joshua, but believes opportunities for Joshua will be available as he expects Usyk’s undisputed hold on the world titles to soon fracture.
