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Sport

12th May 2018

Anthony Joshua is doing his homework on his next fight as announcement nears

All signs point to one fight

Darragh Murphy

Anthony Joshua is already doing his research.

Pen has yet to be put to paper on Joshua’s next fight but everything is pointing towards a unification clash with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.

Negotiations are ongoing to agree to a fight which would decide the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis.

Promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed that ‘AJ’ is digging his heels in with regards to the location of the bout and, as he told JOE last month, Joshua feels like he’s earned the right to have the fight take place in the United Kingdom.

“I met with Anthony and his coach Rob McCracken on Tuesday to discuss our next move,” Hearn told BoxingScene.com.

“AJ feels like he owes it to the UK fans who have supported him up until now to make sure it happens at home.

“It gets to the stage where we are asking ‘Why are we looking to do this in the US?’ Because it’s more money – but is that really important?

“At the moment the fight makes more money in America but he feels like he owes it to the UK fans to do it at home.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BimuMYpDVxI/?hl=en&taken-by=anthony_joshua

In the past few days, Joshua has hinted that the fight is close to coming to fruition, cryptically alluding to his pursuit of the WBC title in his most recent Instagram post which he captioned: “W.e’re B.elt C.ollecting.”

On Friday night, Joshua took to Instagram Stories to reveal that he was studying footage of Wilder’s last fight, a successful title defence against Luis Ortiz.

Joshua then posted footage of the iconic scene from The Matrix in which the lead character, Neo, stopped a wave of bullets with a forcefield.

Make of that what you will…