Park life ANT TO BATTLE KIWI
ANTHONY JOSHUA this week expects to get confirmation he will face Joseph Parker on March 31.
Cardiff ’s Principality Stadium is the frontrunner to host WBA-IBF world heavyweight champion Joshua’s attempt to win New Zealander Parker’s WBO belt.
Joshua, 28, stopped stand-in opponent Carlos Takam in front of 78,000 under the Principality’s closed roof on October 28.
Twickenham and Old Trafford have also been considered but going to the Principality again rules out concerns over the weather at outdoor venues.
Another huge crowd is expected for Joshua-Parker, heavyweight boxing’s first three-title unification fight since Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko beat David Haye in 2011.
And it is the fight Watford-born Joshua wanted as he tries to become boxing’s first four-belt world heavyweight champion this year.
Parker, 26 on Tuesday, has made two title defences and dropped his demands to take 30 to 35 per cent of the purse split, while Joshua is set to earn up to £15million from a fifth title defence.
If Joshua extends his 20-fight unbeaten record against Parker (above) he will likely have to face doping offender Alexander Povetkin in the summer before fighting WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Povetkin, 38, beat Romanian Christian Hammer in a WBA title eliminator last month and if Joshua wants to keep the belts intact he may have to face the Russian before a clash with American Wilder, who squares up to Cuban
Luis Ortiz in New
York on March 3.
Another fight to be confirmed this week is Scott
Quigg’s crack at the WBO world featherweight champ
Oscar Valdez at the
StubHub Center in Carson, California, on March 10.
Quigg, 29, said: “We’re just waiting for the final draft of the contract, we’ve verbally agreed everything and if everything is put in the contract it’s a done deal. It’s
99 per cent done.
“I think I would become
No.1 in the division if I win.
They are building Valdez up to be a star and no one wants to fight him. Other top featherweights never mention him because he will fight anybody and he’s dangerous.”