A resurgent Anthony Joshua has high hopes for 2024.
After impressively beating Otto Wallin in December, the two- time unified heavyweight champion probably thought he would spend the first few weeks of the year preparing for a shootout with Deontay Wilder. Instead, Joshua is about to begin training for an equally explosive contest with former UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, may have poured scorn on October’s heavily hyped ‘Battle of the Baddest’ between Ngannou and WBC king, Tyson Fury, but the Cameroonian’s outstanding performance in defeat has made him one of the most high profile and lucrative assignments for any heavyweight.
The mixed martial arts star dropped an out of sorts Fury in the third round and pushed him all the way before losing a split decision in a remarkable debut but despite his heroics against Fury, beating Ngannou should be well within the scope of any motivated, top tier professional.
When Joseph Parker outboxed Wilder and derailed plans for a long-awaited showdown between Joshua and ‘The Bronze Bomber’, Hearn and the man behind Saudi Arabia’s astonishing entry into boxing, Turki Alalshikh, pivoted quickly and put together a deal for Joshua to fight Ngannou.
The winner of February’s undisputed heavyweight title fight between WBC champion, Tyson Fury, and WBO, IBF and WBA champion, Oleksandr Usyk, is likely to lose the IBF belt shortly afterwards and Joshua and unbeaten Croatian, Filip Hrgovic, are in position to contest it.
Rather than waiting for those pieces to fall into place, Joshua will stay active. The fight with Hrgovic still seems likely to happen this summer but Hearn hopes that beating Ngannou in more impressive fashion than Fury managed will help to ramp up demand for long awaited battle of Britain between Joshua and ‘The Gypsy King’.
“I believe AJ is going to be become undisputed heavyweight world champion,” Hearn said on Matchrooom Boxing’s Youtube channel. “I said he’s going to beat Wallin, he’s going to beat Wilder and he’s going to beat Fury. Really, what we’ve got to focus on now is beating Ngannou. If he can beat Ngannou in style – just like he beat [Otto] Wallin in style – that will just make the demand continue to grow for AJ against Tyson Fury.
“He would have demolished two people that Tyson Fury really struggled against and it will make people start to believe – as I believe they are now – that AJ can win that fight but that’s in the future. Hopefully Tyson Fury can do the business against Oleksandr Usyk and hopefully AJ can deal with Ngannou but it’s a dangerous fight, a huge fight. You’re going to see these two giants next to each other, both carved out of stone, both punching like mules. It’s a really, really explosive heavyweight match up.”