Anthony Joshua next fight: Champion's US gamble to fight Jarrell Miller could earn him record pay-day

This week should end the ongoing wait for concrete news of Anthony Joshua’s next opponent with the deal for a 1 June encounter with New Yorker Jarrell Miller now close to completion.

Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, on Tuesday described himself as ‘80 per cent sure’ that IBF, WBA and WBO champion Joshua will face Miller at Madison Square Garden this summer and all relevant parties could put pen to paper before the weekend is over.

It is now nearly five months since Joshua last boxed, when he recovered from a slow start before pummelling Alexander Povetkin into oblivion with a minute left of the seventh round at Wembley.

Joshua was already booked to fight at the National Stadium again on 13 April but a failure to secure a worthy opponent for a spring showdown beneath the arch has left AJ and Hearn needing to look elsewhere.

Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury were both targets while Dillian Whyte, knocked out by Joshua in the 10th round of their tempestuous 2015 fight, was also offered another crack at British boxing’s poster boy.

But Whyte, who is also promoted by Hearn, turned down a third and final offer worth around £6m last week so now Joshua will attempt to crack America earlier than planned.

“We have got to do something a little bit out of the ordinary,” Hearn said. “Something a little bit left field which we look like we will be doing [in fighting Miller].

“But sometimes I sit down and think ‘what a great move’. We’re going to go and open up a completely different market and once these Americans see Anthony Joshua in the ring and out of the ring, this guy is going to be a massive, massive star over there.”

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In fact, although a June clash with Miller appears to be the fourth choice if not a last resort for the summer, it is understood that Joshua will, incredibly, earn a career-high payday for his part in the clash.

In crossing the Atlantic to face Miller, Joshua will miss the chance to shift another 80,000 tickets at Wembley while his UK pay-per-view figures will take a hit with the fight set to take place in the early hours of Sunday morning on 2 June. But when Hearn was asked whether that meant facing Miller was effectively Joshua taking a pay cut, the promoter could barely stifle his laughter.

September’s victory over Povetkin yielded Joshua around £20m, which is his previous best purse, but facing Miller will likely earn him between £25m and £30m. Not bad for a fight he would not even have taken if negotiations had gone his way over the past few months.

The bulk of the money will come from DAZN, the streaming service on which the fight will be shown in America and who have a lucrative, long-term contract with Hearn and Matchroom.

“But it’s not just DAZN,” Hearn points out. “It’s Sky Sports Box Office, it’s Madison Square Garden, it’s international TV.

“We see from the commercial deals and the TV deals that we have with him globally that he’s by far the biggest star, when you take America and the UK out which are probably the two biggest markets in boxing right now, he’s the biggest star in the sport.

“But in America his profile is quite small to be honest with you. Fury and Wilder’s profile was the same size before their fight. Now Fury and Wilder’s profile has probably outgrown Joshua’s out there.

“If we’re going to make him a big star in America this is the perfect moment and the perfect timing for him and obviously with the TV deals available and everything else, the revenue means that this is a no brainer for us.

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“He would prefer to still be fighting at Wembley on April 13 but we’ve got to a stage where [New York] now looks like the right thing to do, if we can get the deal over the line in the next few days, week then I’m very, very excited. I think it’s brilliant.”

Meanwhile, the men in charge of Wilder and Fury’s highly anticipated rematch continue to negotiate after the World Boxing Council, who recognise Wilder as the world heavyweight champion, postponed the scheduled purse bid by a week.

Now Hearn, who could well make an offer of his own for the clash should it reach the purse bids stage, has appealed to Fury to ensure the new deal does not include a rematch clause.

Fury memorably climbed up off the canvas in the 12th round of his heavyweight classic with Wilder in Los Angeles last year but was controversially awarded only a draw by the judges. That result, which almost guaranteed that the pair will do it again in 2019, left Joshua out in the cold.

“I pray that Fury doesn’t commit to a rematch because he doesn’t have to in the purse bid,” Hearn said. “If he does that, he’s mad because it will kill the Joshua fight should he win.

“In that respect it’s better for us if Wilder wins the rematch, especially if Joshua fights Miller in America in June. That starts making the $50m offer that Wilder made Joshua [last year] look like peanuts.

“AJ against Wilder last September might have done 300-400,000 pay-per-view buys in the States. Now it does over a million.

“Part of that is down to Wilder and we give him that respect, now it’s down to what we do over there to amplify that.”