Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker verbally agreed for March 31st

With 2018 upon us, expectations are high that we will eventually see a titanic heavyweight clash between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder. In the meantime, Joshua is set to unify three of the four major titles this coming March, against undefeated Joseph Parker of New Zealand.

RingTV has the details:

A bout between Joshua, who holds the WBA and IBF heavyweight belts, and WBO heavyweight titleholder Joseph Parker has been verbally agreed to for March 31, sources with knowledge of the negotiations told RingTV.com.

ESPN reported Thursday that Eddie Hearn, who promotes Joshua, and Duco Events, which handles Parker, finally agreed to the financial split. Duco Events’ David Higgins told ESPN that Parker will earn between 30-35 percent to Joshua’s 65-70 percent of the pie.

No venue has been announced, and the fight itself doesn’t have a formal announcement, but if/when it does happen, expect it to be a stadium show in the United Kingdom.

Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) won 2017’s consensus Fight of the Year over Wladimir Klitschko last April, winning the four-knockdown classic by 11th round TKO. The 28-year-old then stopped short-notice replacement Carlos Takam in the 10th round in October, and although Takam was nowhere near close to winning, he was arguably the victim of an early stoppage. Both of Joshua’s 2017 appearances were stadium shows, pulling in more than a combined 160,000 fans, as well as 1.5 million PPV buys in the UK for the Klitschko fight.

Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) won the vacant WBO title vs. Andy Ruiz in December 2016. The 25-year-old then took a clear but unimpressive decision vs. the unheralded Răzvan Cojanu, and most recently took a controversial majority decision vs. Hughie Fury, cousin of former champ Tyson Fury. For the Fury fight, Parker earned roughly $1.5 million, a career-high purse for him, but decidedly way below most of Joshua’s recent paydays.

While Parker has not been lighting the world on fire with his last handful of performances, he was billed as one of the future top fighters at heavyweight, and this is a huge opportunity for him to spoil the Joshua-Wilder train and establish himself as really being considered a top-tier fighter, not just a guy with a title belt.

Of course, Joshua will still be a major favorite to best Parker, and if he wins as expected, then the only belt that won’t be in his possession is the WBC, which belongs to Wilder. It would then turn a potential Joshua vs. Wilder showdown into a truly undisputed heavyweight title blockbuster.

Speaking of Wilder, he’s agreed to fight Luis Ortiz on March 3rd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. They were originally scheduled to meet last November, but Ortiz failed a pre-fight drug test, failing to disclose that he was on blood pressure medication(hydrochlorothiazide), so Wilder instead rematched Bermane Stiverne, who didn’t last a round.