The International Boxing Federation is not putting any unnecessary pressure on the unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in terms of a venue and date for the upcoming mandatory fight with Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev.
Initially, the pair had to meet on June 20 in London but the fight got pushed back because of the coronavirus lockdown.
Here’s a statement IBF sent to Sky Sports:
“Given the current circumstances, we are being flexible. It is difficult to put a firm date on mandatory obligations at the moment.
“Everyone is working hard to get things going with boxing again and hopefully everything will be on track soon.”
Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn said their number one priority is to stage the fight in the UK somewhere in November.
“Our absolute priority is to stage the fight in the UK,” Hearn told Sky Sports.
“It would be great for sports coming back, and businesses coming back, to have a world heavyweight title fight taking place on these shores.
“We’ve had interest from the Middle East, the Far East, yet to receive anything official from Croatia but they have shown interest too. But we’d like to do it [in the UK]. We are starting to look at venues that are smaller.
“There is the possibility of us staging the AJ fight in the UK. I don’t think it will be behind closed doors. If we can get some kind of number together [for a potential crowd] we can create an exclusive event to keep this fight in the UK.”
Source: www.skysports.com
