Anthony Joshua wants to fight in December or January, and fans are waiting to see the level of opposition his team put in front of him.
The Brit is working towards becoming a three-weight world champion, and has two fights under his belt with new coach, Derrick James, since losing his unified title to Oleksandr Usyk.
With a long-awaited fight with Deontay Wilder pushed back yet again, this time until around April next year, promoter Eddie Hearn told Boxing Social of three potential names.
“I don’t want to go on about the Wilder fight, but I think that’s March or April. I think he’s talking about fighting in January. People always say give us some names – I don’t know, Hrgovic, Wallin, Kabayel. Right now we’ve not reached out officially for anyone for December 23, but if talks to speed up we would make a play for that date.”
Otto Wallin is best known for taking Tyson Fury the distance and, despite ultimately losing a decision, putting the Brit in trouble via a 47-stitch cut above his eye that could have saw the bout called off in Wallin’s favour.
More recently, he beat former cruiserweight champion, Murat Gassiev, to become the number two rated heavyweight with the IBF. Number one is Filip Hrgovic, who has been mandatory challenger for a shot at the title for some time now.
With the undisputed bout between Fury and Usyk coming up, the sanctioning body has said that the winner must immediately face Hrgovic. Since the two champions have a rematch clause, it’s expected that the Croatian heavyweight will fight someone for the vacant title – ideally Joshua for Hearn.
Finally there’s Agit Kabayel, a man who has been mentioned in more big fights than he’s participated in. The undefeated 31-year-old from Germany has 23 wins but has been relatively inactive, only fighting once per year since 2020. His latest was a win over Agron Smakici in April.
The December 23 card Hearn mentions is something rival promoter Frank Warren alluded to recently, and would give Joshua just six weeks to prepare.