Joshua v Fury could happen this year - Hearn
TYSON Fury will be Anthony Joshua’s opponent of choice if he is restricted to one fight this year, promoter Eddie Hearn has said.
Joshua was scheduled to fight Kubrat Pulev at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20 but yesterday the bout was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
If the delays go on beyond the summer and Joshua can only fight once, Hearn says his man would want his opponent to be Fury for an all-British heavyweight unification bout.
“We’ve got June 20 as a pencilled date for Anthony Joshua,” he told Sky Sports News before yesterday’s news.
“We will make a statement, potentially this week or early next week, that’s likely to be delayed, I think that’s pretty straightforward and obvious; hopefully until the end of July.
“If it starts kicking on beyond that, you get to a situation where if Joshua is only going to box once this year he’d like it to be against Tyson Fury.”
Fury is expected to complete his trilogy with Deontay Wilder later in 2020, having dethroned the American in February, but Hearn is hopeful some negotiations could be possible.
“The situation is a little bit out of our hands,” he said. “If Bob Arum and Al Haymon (Fury and Wilder’s promoters) can talk and make Deontay Wilder wait a little bit we would love to go into that fight next.
“We are contractually bound to face Pulev who is with Bob Arum and there is a deal to be done. A lot depends on Deontay Wilder.”
WITH this season still hanging in the balance we’ve turned our attention to the next campaign when, eventually, the shadow of coronavirus has lifted.
Here’s the 25-man squad Examiner Sport would like to see at the John Smith’s Stadium next season.
As much as we would have liked to have put Jonas Lossl in here, chief exec Mark Devlin has already pretty well ruled out that possibility.
We think having a more experienced stopper around would be ideal and Ben Foster and Joe Hart are both out of contract this summer – but if Lossl’s wages are an issue then surely that would also be the case for the two
But we’re going to think bigger and go with Liverpool’s highly-rated
Ki-Jana Hoever...
We have taken Danny Simpson out of the equation as while we know the Cowleys appreciate the big improvement their firstever Town signing brought to the back four, we also suspect they would like someone who will be a bit more dynamic on the overlap.
One name that has been touted recently is Wolves’ Dion Sanderson (currently on loan at Cardiff), and while we understand there is nothing in that link, he does seem to fit the profile well.
But we’re going to think bigger and go with Liverpool’s highly-rated Ki-Jana Hoever, who looks unlikely to displace Trent Alexander-Arnold anytime soon. The Reds might therefore be keen to get the 18 year old out on a loan deal to gain experience.
Likewise, we have no new faces among our central midfield options here – though Town would need to strike new loan deals with Chelsea to retain Trevoh Chalobah – who has looked good since extra competition arrived in midfield and the side switched to 4-2-3-1 - and with Arsenal to hold onto Smith Rowe. Hey, we did say ‘dream squad.’
Pritchard and Daly provide excellent competition at number 10, Hogg brings experience in the deeper-lying berths, and we’d expect both Bacuna and O’Brien to continue to develop their game.
Since this is the dream scenario