Joshua will vacate world title to fight Wilder vs Fury rematch winner

Anthony Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn has told talkSPORT that his man will vacate one of his world titles if it means confirming a fight with Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury later this year.

AJ is due to face IBF mandatory challenger, Kubrat Pulev in May/June, but wants the victor of his rivals’ February 22 rematch afterward.

However, he also has a WBO mandatory waiting in the form of Oleksandr Usyk and this could obstruct Joshua from fighting to become an ‘undisputed’ champion with all four belts.

Hearn told talkSPORT’s Will Gavin: “Basically if he wants to keep the belts, it has to be Pulev and then Usyk.

“So the belts are important, but so is the legacy. And at some point, if he has to drop a belt to get the Wilder vs Fury winner, then he will do it.

“Because really I think what the Ruiz fight showed us is that anything can happen at any moment.

“We tried to get the Wilder fight before. We had backward and forwards, ‘He said this, he said that.’

“But we didn’t do it and we nearly lost everything.

“And if it weren’t for AJ’s ability and persistence and will to win, to come back and beat Andy Ruiz–

“But now we’ve got it again. So we’ll be doing everything we can to move into the winner of that fight.”