Jake Paul is risking a fight with Anthony Joshua when he meets Gervonta Davis in their exhibition bout, warns promoter Eddie Hearn.
Hearn, who represents Joshua, revealed a possible bout between AJ and social media superstar Paul is still being discussed.
It is a dizzying combination of high-profile names from widely varying weight classes.
Davis is a formidable world champion, but he fights at lightweight, Joshua is a former two-time undisputed world titlist all the way up at heavyweight and Paul, essentially a novice professional boxer, has competed at 200lb (cruiserweight) barring one outing at heavyweight.
But that came against a 58-year-old and long-retired Mike Tyson.
“It’s such a huge size difference [between Paul and Davis]. Who knows?” Hearn told Sky Sports.
“They’ve come on to me and said we want to make that fight [with AJ]. I said I can’t make that fight until you’ve fought Gervonta Davis in this exhibition.
“If you get chinned by Gervonta Davis, don’t think you’re fighting Anthony Joshua, it’s ridiculous. So we’d rather they didn’t take that fight if we’re going to make the [AJ] fight.”
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Gary Logan and David Adeleye discuss the upcoming bout between Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis and whether this may make room for a Joshua vs Fury fight
He added: “We’re certainly not holding out for a Jake Paul fight. We’re making our own plans and that will be January, February 2026.”
Joshua took to social media last week to launch a verbal tirade at heavyweight rival Tyson Fury. Joshua and Fury have circled one another throughout their professional careers but are yet to box.
Joshua is still hoping Fury will come out of retirement so they can stage an all-British heavyweight blockbuster. But first Joshua must rebuild from last year’s knockout loss to Daniel Dubois.
“Now he’s back in training and my conversations over the last couple of weeks have been very positive with him about locking in a date and returning. Then I saw that post [directed at Fury]. When AJ posts something like that, you know that he’s on,” Hearn said.
“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 haven’t really been any conversations. The kind of 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.”
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Eddie Hearn believes that Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury could soon be a dream fight made into reality.
Joshua’s comeback bout could be against Tony Yoka, the former Olympic gold medallist from France.
“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. This is a comeback fight that should possess some danger to show that we’re ready to roll the dice in a massive fight,” Hearn said.
“Nothing really discussed, no offers made. But I’ll be going to see AJ next week and we’re ready to lock it in.”