Anthony Joshua will have to wait until March 2024 at the earliest to fight Deontay Wilder after yet another postponement.
Anthony had hoped to fight Wilder in the Middle East in December or January but will take an interim fight before potentially facing the American in the spring. Joshua was last in action in August, when he stopped Robert Helenius before it was announced the Finn had failed a pre-fight drug test.
Anthony Joshua is also in a position for the IBF world championship if it were to become vacant following Tyson Fury’s undisputed bout with Oleksandr Usyk, which is scheduled for December 23 in Saudi Arabia.
His promoter, Eddie Hearn, told iFL TV: “He wants to; he really wants to [fight]. We’ve been on calls with him all week. There’s a lot happening with the IBF situation. We’ll have to see. I think he’s going to fight in December or January.
I think the Wilder fight, realistically, is not going to happen until March or April, at the latest. But he wants to fight. He wants to go back to camp and asked us to try and make him a fight for December; whether that spills into January, we’ll see.”
The British has fought just four times in the last three years, losing back-to-back world title fights to Usyk before defeating Jermaine Franklin and knocking out Helenius.
He said after his recent win, “Any time’s a good time to fight. It’s only a fight. It doesn’t matter who it is. It could’ve been Wilder eight years ago or Wilder now. It is what it is at the end of the day.
“There’s no worry to me when it is. I’m just happy that we can get the fight going, and I think people appreciate that. I’m doing my best to keep heavyweight boxing on the map.”
