IF Deontay Wilder wants to fight Anthony Joshua before the end of 2018, he better make a move sharply. Joshua has a heavyweight title unification against Joseph Parker on March 31 in Cardiff and if he prevails, as expected, his team are looking for a fight in the USA in the summer. But it doesn’t have to be against Wilder. An unlikely potential challenger has arisen. If Jarrell Miller beats Johann Duhaupas on April 28 he could fight Anthony Joshua in New York in August.
Promoter Eddie Hearn told Boxing News, “Wilder, if that fight can’t happen, we like the idea of a US fight at the end of August and if we’re going to do it at the Barclay’s Center, which is very likely, to fight the kid from Brooklyn makes sense, if he wins against Duhaupas and looks good. If he does I think Miller could be next, if there’s no Wilder fight.”
Notorious Alexander Povetkin could become the mandatory challenger for Joshua’s WBA heavyweight title, if he beats David Price on the March 31 undercard. Joshua is expected to fight the winner of that contest at some point in 2018 so Miller would be a voluntary defence.
“It [depends] when the WBA call [the mandatory]. We’ll have to fight Povetkin this year. But he’s got to beat Price first,” Hearn said.
As for the Wilder fight, he continued, “I think it’s inevitable but we’re still a way out on the negotiations although we haven’t really started. But he’s got to beat [Luis] Ortiz and we’ve got to beat Parker. Anything could happen in those two fights.”
