Anthony Joshua already ‘in talks’ over next fight after brutal Daniel Dubois KO loss leaves career on the brink
ANTHONY JOSHUA has already held talks over his next move following his destruction at the hands of Daniel Dubois.
The former two-time unified heavyweight champion suffered a brutal fifth-round KO defeat to his former sparring partner at Wembley last month.
Joshua, 34, has seemingly set his sights on an immediate rematch with the IBF king, who dropped him a staggering FOUR TIMES on his way to a career-best win.
And promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed the Watford warrior has already held discussions with Saudi boxing supremo Turki Alalshikh over his next move.
During an appearance on talkSPORT, he said: “If it is up to AJ, the rematch is 100 per cent on. He’s like, ‘Let me at him, I know I can beat him’.
“But we will talk internally as a team and advise him on what is best, I think we are leaning towards the immediate rematch and I think it is going to be difficult to convince AJ otherwise.
“Those talks began a couple of days after the fight and we will sit down with His Excellency in Riyadh next week.
“As a team, we had a meeting this morning with 258 MGt (Joshua’s management), and spoke to Ben Davison last night.”
Joshua pursued immediate rematches with Andy Ruiz Jr and Oleksandr Usyk after losing to the pair in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
And Hearn admits it will be difficult to convince AJ to pursue anything other than immediate revenge against Dubois.
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The Matchroom Boxing chief said: “It’s up to us to feed back to AJ our thoughts and he will make the final decision.
“And it will be very difficult for him not to try and want to beat Daniel Dubois.”
Scores of fight fans have called for Joshua to bring the curtain down on his glittering career following his crushing loss to Dubois.
But AJ has no intention of hanging up his gloves any time soon, saying in his post-fight interview: “Before I came here, I’m always saying to myself, ‘I’m a fighter for life.’
“We rolled the dice at success and we came up short and we roll it again. We keep rolling the dice.”
“We came up short,” AJ said a few days later. “But we have to look at all the positives.
“That’s the mindset and the perspective we have to have. Look what we have achieved in 11 years, it’s phenomenal.
“I want to thank every single one of you who has been riding with me.
“What a rollercoaster journey – and you know what the problem is? It’s far from over yet.”