Heavyweight boxing would be nothing without upheaval and we’ve certainly seen some more of this in recent times. Step forward Anthony Joshua and his preparations for his long awaited American debut in June.
Preparations that have taken something of a dent when it was announced that Jarrell Miller had failed drug tests and therefore would not be available for the fight in Madison Square Garden at the start of next month.
This left Joshua without an opponent and, more importantly, promoter Eddie Hearn with some work to do in terms of finding one. Depsite this, although it may have taken more time than first planned, a New York duel will still go ahead.
Stepping into limelight at relatively short notice is Andy Ruiz Jr, who in taking this fight will be looking to become the first ever Mexican champion at this weight class and although he will be commended for filling the void, he will have his work cut out to make his dream a reality.
This will arguably be nothing more than a healthy payday for Ruiz Jr and although he possesses a record of 32 wins from 33 fights, the list of names that he has knocked to the canvas is far from illustrious.
Ultimately, Joshua knows that he can only beat what is put in front of him and although the opponent has changed, the situation in which the pride of British boxing finds unfortunately remains the same.
A situation that sees the Watford based pugilist locked out of key negotiations with the likes of rivals Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder and ones that will ultimately decide who is the true king of this Heavyweight generation.
With fellow Brit Fury, recently announcing a big money deal with American network ESPN and the “Bronze Bomber” Wilder locked in with Showtime, it makes the prospect of arranging fights a lot more difficult.
That’s not to say it’s impossible, because eventually money will always talk and, ultimately, the mere prospect of such mega-fights will command a lot of it. However, both ESPN and Showtime will want to protect their investments.
They know that once the ‘0’ is no longer attached to the career record of their prizefighter, the value of their asset will then depreciate and for that reason, they would rather avoid the threat that the likes of Anthony Joshua will no doubt pose.
This is an obvious source of frustration for the Olympic Gold Medalist and he will have to hope for a break in the impasse soon, especially if he is to be the man who goes on clean up the division and subsequently hold all of the major Heavyweight title belts.
To truly show his worth, he will have to put on quite the performance for his American boxing cousins on June 1st. If he succeeds as expected and impresses on stateside, then hopefully the prospect of another career defining fight will then firmly appear on the horizon.
Until then, Joshua can only look afar and wonder just when his biggest rivals will put up or shut up. If they don’t, then the hope of being the unified king of division, is one that will begin to fade away and unfortunately boxing will then be denied the opportunity to stage of some its mostly keenly anticipated fights.