Eddie Hearn reveals frontrunner for Anthony Joshua return fight

Matchroom Boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, has told Sky Sports, "Tony Yoka, he's definitely on a list of, I don't know, 10?

"I expect it to be a top-20 guy. It's not going to be top-five."

That info rules out the following opponents for AJ: Derek Chisora; Efe Ajagba; Frank Sanchez; Moses Itauma; Michael Hunter; Lenier Pero; Martin Bakole; Filip Hrgovic; Lawrence Okolie; Daniel Dubois; Zhilei Zhang.

However, other world-ranked opponents for Joshua could be Jared Amderson; Nelson Hysa; Bakhodir Jalalov; Richard Torrez Jr; Justis Huni; Dainier Pero; Murat Gassiev; Mahmoud Charr; Giudo Vianello, amongst others.

"Now he's back in training and my conversations over the last couple of weeks have been very positive with him locking in a fight date and returning.

"Then I saw the post [aimed at Tyson Fury]. When AJ posts something like that, you know that he's on.

"He's like, 'Let's go, I'm back', and that's where we're up to. So the next move is to lock in that fight in early 2026 and then we want Tyson Fury.

"We expect Fury to have another fight as well, if he's going to fight AJ. There really haven't been any conversations. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting from the team is 'we're confident it will happen', but until we start talking, who knows?

"We're not just putting all our eggs in one basket to say it's Tyson Fury because before that we're going to have another fight and we've got to win that one first."