Hearn says Joshua could make WBO and IBF mandatory defenses in 2019

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua could end up facing his WBO mandatory challenger next, and then his IBF mandatory in the second half of 2019, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn. If Joshua doesn’t face WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in 2019, he’s going to be busy fighting his IBF and WBO mandatory challengers.

It works out well for Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn if he faces WBO mandatory next, because that’s expected to be Dillian Whyte if he wins his next fight against Dereck Chisora. The World Boxing Organization still haven’t made Whyte the mandatory yet, but they could decide to do that soon.

“Dillian Whyte is probably the frontrunner right now for the WBO mandatory, and then after that it’s IBF mandatory, which is the winner of Hughie Fury against Pulev. That’s probably not going to come round until the end of 2019,” Hearn said to skysports.com.

It looks like Hearn has Joshua’s entire year mapped out already for 2019. Whyte is the guy that faces Joshua on April 13, and after that, Hearn will match him against the winner of the Hughie Fury vs. Kubrat Pulev fight. That would take care of his IBF mandatory. As for Wilder, he’ll need to wait until 2020 before he faces Joshua.

“The WBO is next [mandatory for Joshua], so it’s all down to what the WBO decide,” Hearn said. “They are going to review it at their convention, which is right at the end of October.”

Joshua can delay his IBF and WBO mandatory defenses if he wants. He could have done the same thing with his World Boxing Association mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin. Joshua could have delayed that in order to finish negotiations with WBC champion Wilder for a unification fight. Joshua chose to take the easy/quick path in defending against Povetkin when he could have made loads more money, albeit with tons of risk facing Wilder. As boxing great Evander Holyfield once pointed out, some people just want to take the easy way in life and avoid risks. Joshua obviously did that when he gave up on the idea of facing Wilder for the softer fight against 39-year-old Povetkin. The boxing public wanted to see Joshua fight Wilder. He and his promoter Hearn chose to take the fight with Povetkin instead. It now looks like history is about to repeat itself with Joshua facing Dillian Whyte, his WBO mandatory on April 13, and then the winner of the IBF eliminator between Hughie Fury and Kubrat Pulev in the second half of 2019 in order to take care of his IBF mandatory. Again, Joshua could delay both of his mandatory defenses if he wanted to in order to fight Wilder in a unification fight, but that would be risky and going against the path that AJ and his promoter Hearn have had him on.

It’s starting to look like the Joshua vs. Wilder fight is going to follow the long build up that we saw with Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. It’s not that Joshua and Hearn are intentionally playing it that way. I think it’s more of a case of them not liking the idea of fighting Wilder and having end the money train. If Wilder knocks Joshua out cold in the 1st or 2nd round, the PPV buys and the huge audiences for AJ in the UK could dry up overnight. As such, it’s a heck of a lot easier for Joshua to fight guys like Whyte, Hughie Fury, Pulev, Povetkin and Joseph Parker.

Having Joshua fight his mandatory challengers for his IBF and WBO belts in 2019 give Hearn a ready made excuse to give to the boxing public for why he doesn’t need to fight Deontay next year, doesn’t it? I’m not sure what happened to the poll Joshua created asking his boxing fans to pick his next opponent for April 13. After Dillian Whyte came in last in the poll and Wilder came in at #1, not much has been said about. It looks to me like the wrong guy won the poll, so I guess that’s the reason why it’s no longer being mentioned by Joshua.