Anthony Joshua’s forthcoming fight could be another crossover clash.
After knocking out Jake Paul on Saturday, Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn addressed rumours of a planned February pitting against the prolific kickboxing champion, Rico Verhoeven.
Hearn says they have been talking about a possible fight with Turki Alalshikh during a press conference in Miami following Joshua’s sixth-round knockout of Paul.
He says a couple of opponents mentioned, with the biggest challenge now is that it is eight weeks away adding that Joshua had a very tough camp, eight or nine weeks, with a new team, who gave him a good working over.
The promoter says they will sit down with that team and talk about when Joshua will be ready to return.
The date is really what they are going to work on over the next four to six days.
Hearn says the plan is to fight in the spring, and then obviously fight Tyson Fury.
Verhoeven, a 36-year-old from the Netherlands, has a kickboxing record of 66 wins, including 21 knockouts, and 10 losses and vacated his Glory heavyweight title in November after reigning as a champion for 12 years.
He fought once as a professional boxer in 2014, scoring a second-round stoppage win and he also has a victory in the lone MMA contest of his career.
While Verhoeven remains an option, Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) said his preference is to go straight into the much-discussed fight against fellow Brit and former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs).
Joshua says hopefully in a week or two, he will have some news, as he is a strong guy and he wants to push on.
Hearn and Joshua emphasized that they want to go straight into the Fury fight without having to take on challenges in between.
Fury announced yet another retirement in January, shortly after suffering a second consecutive decision defeat against Oleksandr Usyk.
Source: theringmagazine
