ANTHONY JOSHUA, the IBF titlist, could fight former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko on November 26 in Manchester if it is a world title unification.
That is possible if the current WBA and WBO champion, Tyson Fury, who had to withdraw from his October 29 rematch with Klitschko, is stripped of his titles or made a champion in recess.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn has been in talks with Klitschko’s management. “I met Anthony, Tony [Sims, on Monday], the general feeling is yes we’ll take this fight and certain things need to happen. Obviously the deal needs to be right. Is it for the WBA, is it for the WBO?” Hearn told Boxing News.
“He [Joshua] wants the fight. He wants to fight everybody, he wants to fight Fury, he wants to fight Haye. The training team will make their mind up and he’ll do what the training team say. But the training team say the deal is right and the belts are on the line, we’ll take the fight. So it’s my job now to make sure the deal is right and everything else falls into place.”
“The governing bodies aren’t going to sleep on this situation. They want the belts to be active as soon as possible,” Hearn added. “It’s an unfortunate situation Tyson Fury is in and genuinely everybody hopes he gets well soon but the boxing world’s not going to sleep. Someone’s going to fight Wladimir Klitschko for the vacant title. So why not that someone be Anthony Joshua?
“We want to fight Tyson Fury, he’s the man that’s unified the divisions so we hope he comes back as soon as possible. In the meantime I don’t know what else to tell people other than no one is going to let these belts be frozen. The governing bodies want their sanctioning fees and they haven’t had one for 12 months for these belts, the heavyweight world championship.”
Klitschko would be a real risk for Joshua. “It’s definitely too early but does he beat him? The general answer is yet. It’s a bit like the Charles Martin fight. I know it’s easy to look back on the Charles Martin fight and say that was easy. But at the time it was is this right? At the time I said to him, ‘Do you beat Charles Martin?’ Yes. Right, then you have to take the fight. Klitschko’s not Charles Martin. Because he’s definitely on the slide but he’s also going to be motivated this time,” Hearn mused.
No opponent is confirmed yet but November but the promoter warned, “Things are moving at a very, very quick pace.”
