ANTHONY JOSHUA is ready to look elsewhere for his next fight while Tyson Fury remains in retirement.
The British superstars looked on course to finally face each other this year – potentially as part of a huge two-bout deal.
But Fury, 36, announced a shock retirement in the wake of his second loss to Oleksandr Usyk, 38.
Joshua, 35, is coming off a loss of his own after Daniel Dubois’ knockout victory in September.
Dubois, 27, now defends his IBF title against Joseph Parker, 33, next Saturday in Saudi Arabia.
Joshua will have a close eye on the bout and could look to fight the winner in his bid to become a three-time heavyweight champion.
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Promoter Hearn BetFred: “Right now because Tyson Fury is retired, so put him to the side for one second, the number one choice for AJ is to fight for the world heavyweight title.
“That’s 99 per cent of what he wants to do and if that’s Daniel Dubois, no problem.
“If that’s Joseph Parker, no problem. If AJ turns around and says that’s what he’s doing, then it’s done.
“It’s not me saying he can’t fight Daniel Dubois. Some people say he shouldn’t have fought Oleksandr Usyk. What are you talking about?
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“It’s your job, he’s the mandatory, what do you want to do? Give your belt up and have all that criticism that you ducked Usyk and you vacated your belt to do it?”
Hearn also talked down the prospect of Joshua joining Fury in hanging up his gloves.
He said: “Not yet, but there will come the time. Those kinds of conversations really come from behind the scenes from how somebody is performing in camp.
“In training camp, if you haven’t got it anymore, it’ll be apparent. The injuries will get worse, you’ll get hurt in sparring against somebody you shouldn’t be getting hurt against.
“You’re not sharp and when that moment comes, that’s when the team will say ‘AJ’s not looking good you know’, and that’s the moment when I will probably have a conversation with him.
“For the Daniel Dubois fight, the camp was great. He was super sharp and we were really confident going into that fight, coming off four good wins, two really good wins, and we thought he would win.
“We knew how dangerous the fight was, so he comes out, has a terrible start, never really recovers, comes back into the fight a little bit and gets chinned. No problem.
“If camp had gone really poorly and we were unsure, I think that conversation may have been brought forward.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
