Two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will announce his comeback opponent next week and promoter Eddie Hearn admits he is close to finalising the contracts for the British-Nigerian\u2019s April 1 comeback.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old has not fought since August\u2019s rematch defeat to Oleksandr Usyk which made it back-to-back defeats to the Ukrainian after a previous loss in September 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n Joshua\u2019s last victory came over two years ago when he took down Kubrat Pulev.<\/span><\/p>\n And Hearn is keen to secure a big-name opponent who can put Joshua back on track to fight the likes of Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.<\/span><\/p>\n There had been talk of a brutal battle against Filip Hrgovic, but he has been ordered to face Andy Ruiz Jr in an IBF eliminator.<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, Hearn has also effectively ruled out Otto Wallin and Demsey McKean after revealing Joshua does not want to take on another southpaw since it doesn\u2019t align with his plans to face other orthodox fighters.<\/span><\/p>\n That could leave Jermaine Franklin as the man to fight Joshua on April Fool\u2019s Day, with the American looking to avenge November\u2019s London defeat to Joshua\u2019s rival, Dillian Whyte.<\/span><\/p>\n However, fans won\u2019t have to wait too long to find out the former champ\u2019s next opponent, as Hearn is currently finalising contracts with a plan to confirm the bout next week.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(Franklin) is definitely in the mix. Demsey McKean is still in the mix,\u201d he told Boxing Social.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe link-up with a new trainer means a southpaw fighter, even though Joshua just boxed one of them twice, is not ideal. When you look at the future for Anthony Joshua, the future revolves around Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte. They\u2019re three orthodox fighters. It is likely that he will face an orthodox fighter next.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think Jermaine Franklin is a great fighter. People say \u2018it\u2019s definitely Franklin\u2019. Nothing is signed and agreed with. But Franklin is coming off a fight where it was very close with Whyte. Some people felt he won that fight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A blockbuster summer rematch with Whyte is believed to be in the offing for the former unified world champion, provided he successfully emerges from his comeback bout\u00a0this\u00a0spring.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will announce his comeback opponent next week and promoter Eddie Hearn admits he is close to finalising the contracts for the British-Nigerian\u2019s April 1 comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2392,6195],"class_list":["post-11244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-anthony-joshua","tag-heavyweight-champion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11246,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11244\/revisions\/11246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}