Anthony Joshua could fight Jake Paul next before targeting a highly-anticipated bout against Tyson Fury in 2026, says the British heavyweight’s promoter Eddie Hearn.
Joshua, who has not fought since losing to Daniel Dubois in September last year, underwent elbow surgery in May but is targeting a return to the ring later in 2025.
Since then, YouTuber-turned-professional boxer Paul beat veterans Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at heavyweight and cruiserweight respectively.
After defeating Chavez by unanimous decision last month, Paul audaciously called for a showdown with Joshua and has met with Turki Alalshikh to try and make it happen.
“Turki came in and said, ‘I’m going to make that fight’,” Hearn, who also held a meeting with Alalshikh and Paul’s manager Nakisa Bidarian, told Sky Sports News.
“Jake Paul’s manager has come out and said, ‘no one decides who Jake Paul fights but us’. I’ve got a smaller ego in this situation, which is quite remarkable!
“For us, we want to fight Tyson Fury, but we are going to fight before that Tyson Fury fight because Tyson Fury is not going to fight Anthony Joshua before spring or summer of 2026.”
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Speaking on Toe2Toe, Barry Jones discusses the potential Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua fight which he believes will eventually happen
Fury is currently retired from boxing but has teased a return to the sport, and Hearn is still keen to make a Joshua-Fury fight. He continued: “AJ has been out [of action] for coming up to a year in September, so we definitely want to fight again.”
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Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn speculates as to whether his fighter would ever face Jake Paul in the ring
Hearn: A chance to ‘extinguish’ Jake Paul from world of boxing
Paul is most famous for his YouTube career but has now won 12 fights after launching his professional career in 2020.
The 28-year-old suffered defeat to Tommy Fury in 2023 but has gone on to beat former UFC star Nate Diaz, professional American boxers Andre August and Ryan Bourland, plus former UFC fighter Mike Perry.
A controversially-sanctioned bout against Tyson is Paul’s only heavyweight fight so far, before he stepped down to cruiserweight against Chavez.
“AJ-Paul is never a fight we anticipated, and it’s never a fight we’ve targeted,” Hearn said.
“But if you want Jake Paul to be the warm-up fight [for Fury] – and obviously, financially, it’s a great opportunity for AJ – and you want to provide AJ with the opportunity to extinguish Jake Paul from the world of boxing, then maybe AJ would oblige.
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“Jake’s a big, strong cruiserweight. I don’t think he’s particularly competitive, but we know in the world we live in, a lot of people would watch it.
“It may be the biggest fight that can be made, bizarrely, in the sport. I’m not going to sit here and tell you, ‘yeah, it’s a great challenge’.
“I think he gets flattened ASAP, but there’ll be a huge amount of people globally that would want to watch that.
“We’ll see. His Excellency said to us, ‘would you be interested in making the fight?’ I can’t say no, because until we know the proposal, maybe. And if Jake Paul is crazy enough to step in the ring with Anthony Joshua, and he might be, because of the amount of money that will be at stake, who knows? You could see AJ against Jake Paul next.”
