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Eddie Hearn insists Deontay Wilder is the only target for Anthony Joshua on April 13

Anthony Joshua

Unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua 22-0 (21) only has eyes for WBC heavyweight boss Deontay Wilder 40-0-1 (39).

The WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champ revealed this week that the number fight on his hit-list is the undefeated American powerhouse who is coming off a controversial draw against Britain’s Tyson Fury 27-0-1 (19) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Joshua, who is in New York City to watch the super middleweight fight between WBA ‘regular’ titleholder Rocky Fielding and unified middleweight champ Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, insists the only fight he wants on April 13 at London’s Wembley Stadium is the ‘Bronze Bomber’.

“He just came out and told the truth: I want Deontay Wilder on April 13 – that’s my fight date at Wembley,” promoter Eddie Hearn told Sky Sports.

“Why not? If you want to be undisputed, now’s the time, so he’s made it clear, to the public, to me, that’s what he wants.

“If Wilder fights Fury, he [Joshua] has to fight the winner of Whyte-Chisora or Jarrell Miller, or [Oleksandr] Usyk, or one of these guys.

“But there is absolutely no poll required for Anthony Joshua. It’s just Deontay Wilder, just the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.

“Right now, our focus is on Deontay Wilder on April 13, at Wembley. If he doesn’t want to fight Anthony Joshua, there’s nothing we can do, but that’s what we want.”

Joshua and Wilder were involved in protracted public negotiations early this year that end acrimonious with various allegations being slung about by both camps. The 29-year-old Brit would go on to face Russian veteran Alexander Povetkin at Wembley in September, stopping him in seven, while Wilder surprised the boxing world by agreeing to face Fury in December.

Whether the Joshua-Wilder fight can be made for April remains to be seen. The WBC has ordered an immediate rematch of the Wilder-Fury bout that saw the 33-year-old American outboxed for long stretches of the fight before dropping Fury, 30, in the ninth and twelfth rounds to hold on for a hotly disputed draw.