Eddie Hearn insists Anthony Joshua is on the cusp of becoming undisputed heavyweight world champion and believes he will knock out Tyson Fury to achieve the feat.
Hearn is in Saudi Arabia to promote Friday’s showdown between Joshua and Ngannou, who gave WBC heavyweight champion, Fury all he could handle in a contentious split decision loss in October.
’The Gypsy King’, who touched down in Riyadh on Tuesday to support his brother Roman, who is in action on Friday, has the chance to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion in the four-belt era when he faces unified heavyweight titlist, Oleksandr Usyk on May 18 also in Saudi Arabia.
Hearn admits he is backing Fury to defeat the Ukrainian and feels ‘AJ’ will then rip away the belts from his long-time rival.
“I’ve told you before, I’ll tell you again,” the Matchroom boss told Sky Sports Boxing.
“He will be the undisputed heavyweight world champion.
“When he beat Otto Wallin, people started becoming believers again.
“When he beats Francis Ngannou, in a much better fashion than Tyson Fury did, people will start believing again and again and again.
“Anthony Joshua is going to knock out Tyson Fury to become undisputed world heavyweight champion.
“All we’ve got to do, is do our job on Friday night.
“Tyson Fury, don’t let us down, beat Oleksandr Usyk and we will get the biggest fight in the history of the sport and AJ will be victorious as the undisputed world champion.
“You heard it here first.
“Book it. Write it down, but let’s get through Friday night first.”
The British rivals were pictured with Ngannou, Cristiano Ronaldo and His Excellency Turki Alalshikh on Tuesday, who has been instrumental in bringing these events to Saudi Arabia.
Whilst Joshua and Fury apparently remained cordial, tensions were seemingly high between ‘The Gypsy King’ and ‘The Predator’, according to former middleweight champion, Andy Lee, who is in Saudi Arabia training Joseph Parker for his clash with Zhilei Zhang and also a part of team Fury.
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“There was no shouting and roaring,” Lee told Sky Sports.
“It was just, simply, ‘Hey, you’ve been talking about me, saying I’m a coward.
“Saying that you won’t fight us. I won the fight!’
“It’s just what fighting men do, I guess. They won’t let things go.”
