Saturday, April 20, 2024  |

News

Aficianado

Anthony Joshua-Wladimir Klitschko II has tentative date, location

Photo by Nick Potts / AP
Fighters Network
25
Jul

Wladimir Klitschko has yet to officially exercise his rematch clause, but all signs point toward him doing so, and Eddie Hearn isn’t waiting around.

Anthony Johsua’s promoter traveled to Las Vegas earlier this month to tour T-Mobile Arena, which is set to host Mayweather-McGregor and Canelo-Golovkin. Soon, you might be able to add the Joshua-Klitschko rematch to the docket.

Hearn told Sky Sports on Tuesday the highly anticipated heavyweight championship return bout is “penciled in” for November 11 with T-Mobile Arena the “front-runner” to host the event.

“The amount of British fight fans that would travel there, it will be a momentous occasion and one that we will savour for a long time so fingers crossed it’s a party in Las Vegas on November 11,” Hearn said. ” … “AJ has been over there for about 10 days and has enjoyed himself and got to know the area a little bit.”



Joshua (19-0, 19 knockouts) stopped Klitschko in the 11th round of a heavyweight classic in April. The battle of Olympic gold medalists featured both men hitting the canvas, but it was Joshua who survived to solidify himself as the man in boxing’s glamour division. That bout took place at London’s Wembley Stadium before 90,000 fans, and while T-Mobile Arena only holds 20,000, the site would hold special significance.

It would mark Joshua’s long-awaited American debut, and even though Klitschko (64-5, 53 KOs) has fought in Vegas five times, he’s never been party to a true Vegas mega fight.

“It’s no secret we’ve been salivating about getting him over here and certainly that would be a phenomenal fight,” said Showtime Sports boss Stephen Espinoza. “It would be the biggest heavyweight Vegas fight in probably a couple of decades, so we would love to host it.”

Now, we wait for Klitschko to go ahead and exercise his rematch clause.

Mike Coppinger is the Senior Writer for RingTV.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeCoppinger

SIGN UP TO GET RING NEWS ALERTS