Promoter Eddie Hearn seems as determined as he is optimistic over making a super-fight, this year, between IBF heavyweight ruler Anthony Joshua and former world champion Wladimir Klitschko. Hearn, in speaking with Sky Sports and The Telegraph, says he has not one but two dates in mind for what he says could be “the biggest fight in British boxing history.”
Hearn says the fight, less than a month ago an unthinkable match-up for this year, is “still very much on the cards,” and that it could happen in November or December. Hearn wants to lock the fight down before 2016 comes to an end.
“Klitschko wants the fight, AJ wants the fight, that’s always a great sign,” Hearn, who has twice been in Germany talking with Team-Klitschko, said today. “We have November 26, eight weeks from today, and there is a possible date in December, so we are optimistic of getting it done before 2016 ends. I’m confident and I think it’s the fight to make.”
Hearn, who went on to say that boxing is “all about timing,” said that Joshua – still just 17-0 and yet to go into the 8th-round – is relaxed and has an “I’ll fight anybody” attitude. Hearn also says that although the fight, easily the biggest and most dangerous of the 2012 Olympic gold medal winner’s entire career, will be ahead of schedule for Joshua if it does happen this year, it is one that AJ can win. And imagine how huge Joshua, already a big name, would be if he pulled off a win over Klitschko.
Joshua, already a media favourite, would certainly take over from the troubled Tyson Fury as Britain’s number-one big man of the sport. But, on the other side of the coin, comes the damage Joshua would possibly have done to his massively promising career if he was to lose, and lose badly, to Klitschko. It would all depend on how competitive the fight was, and if Joshua lost but lost honourably in a good fight, he would of course be young enough to come again.
It’s a huge gamble of a fight – for both men come to that, with Klitschko’s career and legacy sure to take a hammering if he were to lose to a fighter who is, by comparison, still a relative novice – but Hearn and Joshua seem keen to roll the dice. And Hearn is right on one thing: Klitschko Vs. Joshua would be one enormous night for British boxing.