IBF heavyweight Anthony Joshua will box in the Manchester Arena on November 26, a month after Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschkoโs scheduled October 29 rematch for the WBA and WBO heavyweight crowns in the same venue.
โThe O2 wasnโt available, itโs a bigger arena, theyโre the main two reasons really. Obviously weโve done a lot of O2 cards, we had April 9, June 25 and this one September 10, so decided to go up north,โ promoter Eddie Hearn explained. โWe tried actually to get the Millenium stadium for December 3 but theyโve got an event on December 10, which wasnโt confirmed and when we challenged them they only wanted to do one date, because of the pitch, in December.
โWeโll sell out in the first 10 or 15 minutes. Itโs nothing to do with the Fury fight, itโs just thatโs where the biggest stadium is in Manchesterโฆ Itโs different kind of audiences I think as well.
โDeep down theyโll know who the draw is but saying that, Tyson Furyโs got the bigger achievement in pro boxing. When you talk about bargaining for that [Fury-Joshua] itโs a pure 50-50 fight. Joshuaโs a much bigger name, Tyson Furyโs got the better win. I think theyโll feel the same way. I donโt think that will be a difficult fight to make when all the mess is cleared.โ
The most likely opponent for Joshuaโs next fight is Kubrat Pulev, the European heavyweight champion, although New Zealandโs Joseph Parker and former WBC champ Bermane Stiverne are also in the frame.
โI like the Pulev fight,โ Hearn said. โI would think that smaller guys, with faster hands are more dangerous against a man with size and thatโs why I think Pulev is a good fight for AJ because itโs European style, jab-right hand.
โTheyโre all difficult [to make]. They all want a fortune. Weโre having to pay a lot of money for opponents but theyโre all looking at Anthony Joshua and looking at the numbers and saying Iโm not fighting him for peanuts so pay me up.
โPulevโs definitely the most likely, but having said that heโs not jumping out of his seat to take the fightโฆ Heโs got decent backing in Bulgaria and Germany, perhaps heโs happy to take a fifth of the money to defend his European title?โ
Hearn is hoping to arrange Parker versus David Price and Dillian Whyte versus Dereck Chisora for the November 26 undercard.
Price and Parker both seem happy to fight. โI think thatโs the one thatโs okay. The problem is Chisora, thatโs going to be a problem,โ the promoter said. โIf Chisora wants some stupid number for that fight obviously itโs not going to get made. If heโs sensible and wants to make a nice few quid for the fight, it can get made.”
Hearn continued, โIf we both turn round to them [Parker] and said letโs do the Joshua fight, they canโt really say no but I think Parker against Joshua could be a really big fight but we need to build him here first. If he [Parker] knocks Price out, that fight becomes really big, if Price knocks Parker out that fight becomes really big and we need to build the opponents as time goes on,โ Hearn explained. โWhen it comes down to it, they [opponents generally] either donโt want to fight or they want to price themselves out. Parkerโs team are quite sensible in that they want to improve and when they fight Joshua they want to be a better fighter than they are now, so thatโs why theyโre fighting [Alexander] Dimitrenko, theyโre open to fighting Price and then theyโll fight Joshua.โ