By Jake Tiernan: DAZN CEO Joe Markowski gave an update on Anthony Joshua’s status regarding his replacement opponent for the August 12th event at the O2 Arena in London.
Markowski says it was the right decision to pull Dillian Whyte from the card after VADA reported his adverse findings on one of their tests. As for the replacement opponent for Joshua, Markowski says they’ll have an announcement on that early next week.
Whether the event remains on DAZN PPV will depend on who Joshua’s replacement opponent is.
Obviously, it’s going to need to be a big name to justify keeping it on pay-per-view because fans will be paying a lot of money, and they don’t want to see AJ fighting a freshly dug-up stiff on August 12th.
It’s not good enough if Eddie Hearn trots out Dereck Chisora as Joshua’s opponent because that’s not a PPV-level fight. If DAZN & Matchroom Boxing are going to keep the event on PPV, they will need to get one of these names for Joshua to fight on the August 12th date:
- Jared Anderson
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Arslanbek Makhmudov
- Frank Sanchez
- Filip Hrgovic
- Martin Bakole
“Not yet. Obviously very disappointed. I know team AJ is, and I know Eddie [Hearn] is. I feel for Eddie. I feel for AJ more than anyone else,” said DAZN CEO Joe Markowski to iFL TV about Dillian Whyte being pulled from the August 12th card due to his positive VADA test.
“Yeah, the right decision to cancel the event. We’re in discussions with Matchroom. We’ll see what happens there. I don’t think anything will get announced until early next week.”
It sounds like the card is in jeopardy of being canceled if they can’t find a suitable name to step in and face Joshua. Fans don’t want to pay top dollar to watch 39-year-old Chisora brought in as AJ’s opponent.
“Listen, this is all played out the last 24 hours, so we need to get into lots of detail. There are lots of nuances to it. So I think early next week, we’ll be making an announcement on that,” said Martkowski when asked if the August 12t card will still go ahead for the O2 Arena as previously planned.
“It completely just depends on the opponent. All of this needs to be discussed. If it goes ahead next weekend, we’ll have to wait and see, but as I say, early next week, we’ll have an announcement,” said Martkowski when asked if the August 12th event will still be on DAZN PPV, even without Dillian Whyte fighting Joshua.
