Turki Alalshikh has confirmed that Anthony Joshua will face the winner of Daniel Dubois vs. Filip Hrgovic in his next fight.
Joshua is expected to return to the ring on the weekend of September 20-21 at Wembley Stadium.
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In April, Joshua told talkSPORT that there were four names on the shortlist to be his next opponent.
The former heavyweight champion insisted that whoever puts in the best performance among Deontay Wilder vs. Zhilei Zhang and Hrgovic vs. Dubois on June 1 will be the favorite to face him.
However, Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, has since told MMA Hour that the winner of Wilder vs. Zhang is no longer in the running.
“We have the Joshua fight in September, it all depends on the outcome of the Hrgovic fight (with Dubois),” he said.
“Because now we have Wilder vs. Jared Anderson locked in the card in Los Angeles.”
Wilder, who has seen several opportunities to fight Joshua over the past fall, is the target of an all-American clash against exciting newcomer Jared Anderson on the undercard of Terence Crawford against Israil Madrimov on August 3.
That depends on Wilder “looking good against Zhang” in his next outing.
The assumption was that this meant Wilder had to win the fight, but Alalshikh claims that is not the case.
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“Not especially to win, he just has to look good and not get hurt,” he added.
Provided he wins his fight in September, Joshua’s next fight will be against Tyson Fury who takes on Oleksandr Usyk for all the glamor division belts on May 18.
The heavyweight titans have a two-way rematch clause written into their contracts, with the second contest set to take place on October 12-13.
Once Fury and Usyk have fulfilled their contractual obligations, Joshua will then enter the fray with a fight against ‘The Gypsy King’ targeted for March 2025.
AJ recently landed in Saudi Arabia ahead of the four-belt shootout and is expected to have a ringside seat to the fight.
He will watch with intrigue as this will have huge implications for his future.
He is unlikely to get a third fight with Usyk after convincingly losing his two fights against the Ukrainian in September 2021 and August 2022.
So despite picking Usyk to win, Joshua will surely secretly support Fury.
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