Hearn has his work cut out for him
Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn has essentially planned out Anthony Joshua’s next two years and is determined to make sure that Joshua keeps hold of all his titles before he shares the ring with Deontay Wilder.
Joshua will make his US debut against Jarrell Miller in June and while the Brit is heavily favoured to leave New York unscathed, circumstances outside of his control may force him to drop a title.
Boxing hasn’t had an undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis but should ‘AJ’ manage to keep his current collection of belts and should Wilder successfully defend his WBC crown against Dominic Breazeale in May, the stage will be set for the two undefeated behemoths to go head-to-head for that rare honour.
With the queue of mandatory challengers getting busier and governing bodies’ patience being tested, Hearn remains hopeful of avoiding a scenario which will see ‘AJ’ forced to vacate any of his current titles.
“We don’t want to vacate because we want the undisputed fight,” Hearn told iFL TV.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, if a title was vacated, we’d still fight Wilder but it wouldn’t be the undisputed fight. That’s the golden chalice, isn’t it? So that’s why we want it to happen in November or December.”
Tyson Fury’s name was nowhere to be seen but ‘The Gypsy King’ could force himself into the conversation if he manages to secure a rematch with Deontay Wilder before Joshua organises a unification clash with ‘The Bronze Bomber’.
Should Fury come out on top against Wilder then he will jump the queue and set up arguably the biggest all-British boxing match in history.
But as it stands, Hearn is expecting to follow up Joshua’s upcoming clash with Miller with a long-awaited fight against Wilder before he then looks at the mandatory defences against the WBO, IBF and WBA challengers, in that order.
“WBO with [Oleksandr] Usyk, IBF with [Kubrat] Pulev is after the WBO mandatory, and then there will be a WBA mandatory, which is not set yet,” Hearn explained. “Trevor Bryan [is currently No. 1 in the WBA] but he wouldn’t be the mandatory. Because it’s a regular title, at some point later this year, they will say ‘this fight is for the mandatory position.’
“He is going to have a logjam of mandatories. So after Miller, he’s either going to fight Wilder or another fight or, more likely, Usyk.
“If he fights the undisputed fight then he’s got to fight Usyk. Then he’s got to fight Pulev as another mandatory after that. And then he’s got to fight the WBA one. So that’s when you get into the realms of, are we vacating a belt here?”
