Sportsbible says AJ has picked who he wants to fight next. And it is....

How official is this? I know he has never ruled out a Whyte rematch as Dillian still wont accept he lost fair and square, hurt his shoulder in the 2nd and if he hadnt he would of finished AJ off and in general AJ got lucky cuz of the injury. AJ wants that put one to bed and only way to do it would be to do it again and do it properly and without any reason to involve an excuse.

Personally i dont care who he fights next, he has just faced Wlad in the fight of his life but if it is a Whyte rematch it wont really get me pumped. All i saw in the 1st fight was Joshua not fighting smart, getting tagged, changing his tactics and rolling right over Whyte, if he comes in the next time all professional and not just ready for a dust up he is guna roll right over him again but right from the start this time.

But im not sure i believe this is totally legit anyway.

 

that is wilder type matchmaking, if true. he also has to hope whyte gets past wach. no doubt whyte will win if it goes to the cards, it is in britain. wach would need two kd's per round to squeak a sd.

 

I think Joshua should wait for this fight to happen at the right time, because personally i think Dillian is good enough to become world champion on his own merit and then the fight will be for a unificiation. I can see Dillian being good enough to beat Parker.

 

I saw that a couple of places also. But, I think that I also saw that Hearn said that Whyte would be at least a year away. Everybody is jumping in the queue to fight Joshua and, if he can keep winning, he's got a foreseeable sequence of 5-7 solid fights down the road. I don't see how it's sensible to have Whyte in the first three of them.

 

He is not fighting Whyte next.

 

The original article with The Times just says Joshua wants a rematch at some stage, doesn't say he wants Whyte next. Unless there is another article where he specifically says he wants Whyte next, people are just twisting his words.

 

While I would be surprised to see him rematch Whyte so soon, matchmaking Joshua later this year is gonna be a little tricky, if Wlad fails to activate his rematch clause. Joshua's bosses at Matchroom probably wants a safe defence if it's not to be Wlad, one that casuals can relate to, and one that can at least part-way justify another PPV event back at the O2.

So if not Whyte, who? Pulev is virtually unknown in the UK and has a poor win against Chisora to his name, which is a tough sell. Whyte on the other hand is a house fighter, a decent trash talker and the animosity between him and AJ is real. They could even stretch things a little and say the score between the two is 1-1 at the moment. And he did rock him in the 2nd.

Apart from Whyte or Pulev it's hard to think of a match which can be made as a back up to fighting Wlad again. The other house fighter is Ortiz, but I'm not sure Hearn is in a hurry to make that fight...

 

Ortiz has left Hearn by the way, they were on a fight by fight deal and he's now with Al Haymon.

 

Really? I didn't know that. Matchroom/Sky kept that very quiet...

 

i heard he wants a handicapped match with Whyte and Bellew both get to alternate between rounds.

Theres no way he can fight whyte with two mandatories knocking on his door!

 

Not strictly true. it is widely known all the governing bodies apart from the IBF are pretty relaxed over mandatories and Hearn has already conceded that if the Wlad rematch goes ahead, the IBF belt would probably have to be dropped.

In fact he is quoted saying: “I’m not really concerned about belts. I’d love him to have all the belts but as Tyson Fury found out, that’s not really possible".

That was in relation to the Wald rematch but the principle has been established. Hearn, who tells Joshua what to do, wants fights he can sell over belts. He has to decide if he can sell the Pulev fight, then he will tell his employee which route they will take. It might still be Pulev, but like I say that's a tough sell for Matchroom.

One thing for sure, Joshua's next fight is highly unlikely to be Ortiz...

 

Just NO! Really this thread is stupid! almost like your 7'0 monster whatever it was in the room,comparing bums to Joshua accomplishments....lol

 

AJ will fight Whyte later, now he has 2 options - Wlad rematch or Pulev.

Maybe next year, if (and that's a big IF) Whyte doesn't lose to someone as Dillian is very beatable.