Eddie Hearn admits he is keen to stage a rematch between Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte in a stadium in 2023.
Joshua stopped Whyte in the seventh round of their British heavyweight title clash at the O2 Arena in 2015.
Both ‘AJ’ and Whyte are coming off world heavyweight title defeats respectively, with Joshua beaten for the second time by Oleksandr Usyk earlier this month in Saudi Arabia and Whyte halted by Tyson Fury at Wembley Stadium in April.
Joshua could return to the ring in December, although his promoter Hearn says it won’t be against ‘The Body Snatcher’, who has been linked in recent weeks with a showdown against WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight champion, Daniel Dubois, although the 34-year-old is yet to announce his next bout.
Hearn insists Whyte is top of their agenda for next year as well as former heavyweight world champion, Deontay Wilder who returns against Robert Helenius on October 15 following his epic third fight with Fury last October, which saw the American stopped in the 11th round, despite knocking down ‘The Gypsy King’ twice.
“He’s going to fight a top 15 guy,” Hearn said about Joshua to IFLTV.
“The fight that I want. The fight that he wants is Dillian Whyte.
“It’s not going to happen in December, but it’s a massive stadium fight next year.
“The first one was epic. The second one will be even better.
“Deontay Wilder. It’s one of the biggest fights in boxing. It’s realistic because someone is going to pay a lot of money for that fight, but I reach out to their team and don’t really hear anything back.
“So it’s difficult to know whether there can be progression because of the history of trying to make that fight.
“But the Dillian [Whyte] fight is a fight that is a must make and [we] will make and the one in December will be a top 15 guy.
“Someone that AJ can go in and be challenged against, but can show his improvements and get active and that’s the key.”
Joshua fell to a split decision defeat to Usyk in his attempt to win back the IBF, WBO, WBA ‘super’ and IBO belts which were ripped away from him by the Ukrainian at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium 11 months prior.
Should the 32-year-old return to action in December, it will be his first non-world title clash in seven years having been involved in 12 consecutive world title bouts.
And Hearn, who is currently in Abu Dhabi promoting his November 5 show headlined by WBA light heavyweight champion, Dmitry Bivol vs Gilberto Ramirez, has revealed that he would like the Watford man to compete around the world.
“We can fight who we want, where we want, when we want, be as active as we want.
“While we’re building up to get AJ a shot at the world heavyweight title again.
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“That should be the most exciting thing for his career now. A chance to actually be active and build a schedule.
“I want to build a world tour. I want to see AJ fight in London, in Beijing, in Australia, in the Middle East, in America and it’s going to be a lot of fun and I think he’s really going to fall in love with the sport again.”
