{"id":328583,"date":"2025-12-21T19:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T19:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328583\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T19:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T19:00:10","slug":"eddie-hearn-admits-there-is-one-heavyweight-anthony-joshua-wouldnt-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328583\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn admits there is one heavyweight Anthony Joshua wouldn’t beat"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Anthony Joshua<\/a> threatening a meaningful resurgence in 2026, Eddie Hearn has named one man who could prove a step too far.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old defeated internet star Jake Paul by sixth round stoppage on Friday<\/a>, ending a near 15-month layoff at the Kaseya Center, Miami.<\/p>\n

After that victory, \u2018AJ\u2019 is now reported to face a credible opponent on a Riyadh Season show in early 2026, before targeting a more lucrative clash with Tyson Fury next summer.<\/a><\/p>\n

But while Fury, who must first come out of retirement, seems like the preferred option, Joshua could alternatively look to become a three-time world champion next year.<\/p>\n

A clash with former stablemate and newly-crowned WBO champion Fabio Wardley<\/a>, for instance, could make a great deal of sense, especially when considering the terrific punching power that is typically generated by both men.<\/p>\n

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, meanwhile, represents a far greater puzzle to solve, just as Joshua discovered following two points defeats to the Ukrainian in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but with \u2018AJ\u2019 having now aligned himself to Team Usyk, it would appear that a trilogy encounter with the bona fide heavyweight king remains far from realistic.<\/p>\n

But even so, the Brit\u2019s promoter, Hearn, has admitted in an interview with Froch On Fighting<\/a> that his client would likely lose to crafty southpaw once again.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould \u2018AJ\u2019 become the world heavyweight champion? In my opinion, he beats Fabio Wardley. So yes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan he beat Oleksandr Usyk? No, at the moment. I don\u2019t think he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Usyk\u2019s next move, he could be set to make a voluntary defence of his world heavyweight titles against former WBC champion Deontay Wilder<\/a> next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Anthony Joshua threatening a meaningful resurgence in 2026, Eddie Hearn has named one man who could prove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-328583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}