Francis Ngannou has been named as a potential opponent for Anthony Joshua after his stunning boxing debut against Tyson Fury.
Former UFC champion Ngannou pushed Fury to the brink in their crossover fight last October but lost a controversial decision. Fury was expected to make easy work of Ngannou to set up an undisputed fight against Oleksandr Usyk just two months later, but he needed to pick himself up off the canvas after being dropped and only won by one point on the judges’ scorecards.
Joshua rebounded after his consecutive defeats to Oleksandr Usyk by winning three fights on the spin last year. ‘AJ’ previously dismissed a ‘gimmick’ fight against Ngannou but the Brit’s promoter Eddie Hearn changed his stance on the fight after Ngannou’s jaw-dropping performance against Fury.
“Right now, we have three fights that we’re in discussions for they’re all big and that doesn’t involve Deontay Wilder,” Hearn said whilst discussing Joshua’s fight plans with iFL TV. “Before March our aim, and we’ve discussed this, is to fight the winner of Fury versus Usyk. That is all we want to do. Obviously there’s a [Filip] Hrgovic fight out there for the world heavyweight title.”
“There’s a Francis Ngannou fight out there which would be absolutely colossal. There’s other heavyweights as well, the [Zhilei] Zhang fight possibly as well with Queensbury. Our conversations right now are about mapping out Joshua’s next four or five fights. To map out his 2024 and potentially the rest of his career.
Hrgovic is the most likely opponent for Joshua in March as a world title is expected to be on the line for the fight if Usyk is stripped of his IBF belt after facing Fury. Ngannou’s chances of fighting Joshua would be boosted if the Ukrainian’s title isn’t taken away it as Hearn admitted a potential Hrgovic fight could be delayed for ‘AJ’.
“A lot has to happen by March to make that possible with Hrgovic. Are Fury or Usyk going to be able to keep the belt, or do they have to let it go? Is Joshua going to replace [Otto] Wallin in the rankings? There’s a lot of discussion, maybe that’s a fight that when everything plays out could be one for the summer,” he added.
