Hearn wants to match Anthony Joshua against Haye in 2015 in stadium fight

By Boxing News - 10/07/2014 - Comments

haye54By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn, the promoter for unbeaten heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (8-0, 8 KOs), is hoping to match the 6’6” Joshua against former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) in late 2015 in a stadium fight.

Hearn also wants to have Joshua fight Dereck Chisora, Tyson Fury and David Price in 2015. In other words, Hearn is hoping to match Joshua against all the top British heavyweights next year.

Hearn probably won’t get the 34-year-old Haye to agree to fight Joshua in 2015 unless Haye runs out of luck trying to capture a world title. Haye wants to go after one of the heavyweight straps in 2015, but he’s not sure which belt he should go for. He’s got WBC champion Bermane Stiverne, WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev or IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. A fight against Joshua makes absolutely no sense at all for Haye given that Joshua isn’t a world title holder, and it would just be a domestic affair rather than a fight with a title on the line.

“In the world of boxing and particularly in this country, a fight between David Haye and Anthony Joshua in 2015 is a stadium event,” Hearn said to Skysports.com.“It’s a huge, huge fight with massive potential. If he wants to win world titles, these are the guys [Haye, Price, Chisora and Fury – he has got to demolish on the way and I’m sure that he will demolish these guys as well. I don’t think anything is going to stop him.”

Joshua fights this Saturday night against 34-year-old Russian Denis Bakhtov (38-9, 25 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Hearn is calling this a major step up for the 24-year-old Joshua even though Bakhtov was knocked out in just five rounds last year by Manuel Charr. I mean, I don’t know how you can call this a step up fight for Joshua with Bakhtov being blown out by a fighter like Charr.

At best, I see Bakhtov as being a lateral move to Joshua’s last fight against Konstantin Airich. Bakhtov has also been beaten by Andrzej Wawrzyk, Vyacheslav Glazkov and Alexander Ustinov. However, Bakhtov did beat Danny Williams though, so he’s at least got that going for him. Yeah, it’s a great step up fight for Joshua.



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