Big heavyweight bout looming

Deep in the bowels of Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, Anthony Joshua sat with his four world heavyweight belts in front of him and called on Deontay Wilder to get serious about negotiations for a unification fight.

Across the Atlantic, Wilder was posting a video on Twitter minutes later, shouting into his phone: “Joshua? Joshua? Stop playing, and pick up the phone!”

Team Joshua wants it. Team Wilder wants it. The boxing world and beyond wants it. But will it happen? The path was cleared for a fight between the sport’s two most destructive punchers when Joshua beat Joseph Parker in a unanimous decision in front of 78,000 spectators in Cardiff on Saturday. He added Parker’s WBO belt to his own WBA, IBF and lightly regarded IBO straps.

Joshua paraded them in the ring. He displayed them in front of the world’s media.

But he knows there’s one missing if he’s to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 2000: Wilder’s WBC belt.

“I will get all five of the belts,” Joshua said.

Yet, he knows time is not on his side. And so does his promoter, Eddie Hearn. Being a multiple champion brings mandatory fights. There’s a small window for Joshua to clean up the division before the belts eventually start getting stripped off him.

“I think it has to happen in 2018,” Hearn said of the Wilder fight, “otherwise we are going to hit some major problems with the politics and the mandatories. It’s just a case of if it happens next or if we fight (someone else) in the summer and then Wilder.”

NICK POTTS — ASSOCIATED PRESS Anthony Joshua celebrates with his belts after his win against Joseph Parker to become the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion on March 31.