Joshua has been out of the ring since September, and has also travelled to Ghana and Greece, having not fought since his defeat at the hands of Daniel Dubois in Wembley Stadium.

Joshua’s trainer is Ben Davison, and he is not keen on him fighting Paul.

“I don’t like all that,” admitted Davison. “First and foremost, how can people even talk about that? Two, where’s the safety aspect in boxing? Do you know what I mean? That is a serious risk with something going wrong. 

“Unfortunately, it might take something like that for people to be like, ‘Hold on, we’ve got to reconfigure this’. But somebody would pass it; somebody would allow it; somebody would sanction it.”

There is too much money to be made. 

“And that's why,” the trainer added.

Joshua already sent the former MMA champion Francis Ngannou into orbit with a chilling knockout, and although the former Olympic champion, 35, has not been in the ring, he hasn’t stopped training.

“He’s the ultimate professional; he’s always keen on making sure that he’s right; the body’s right; the mind’s right and all the rest of it,” Davison added. “He’s had a couple of niggles and obviously had a tough fight there and to be honest with you, he’s had years of big fights in the heavyweight division and sometimes the rest will do you good as well. It’s good to see that [Joshua has been relaxing abroad, but] in that time he’ll always be looking after himself but he's also enjoying himself as well.” 

Davison said “there were a few things” that did not help the team going in to the Dubois fight, but would not expand on them, and recognized that Joshua getting hit early played a significant role.

“It wasn’t a great start but then getting clipped with a shot there, you couldn’t even see, he couldn’t even brace for it, right at the end of the first round, it sets it right back,” Davison said. “But yeah, it was a bad performance and at the end of the day, it’s our job to make sure the boxers go in there fully prepared and able to perform their best. He didn’t perform his best so we have to look at that and take responsibility for that as well.”

Will Davison be working with Joshua when he makes his ring return? 

“I’ve always said from day one with AJ, this is with any of them [my boxers], there’s no trainer or fighter contract, it’s fight by fight, any fight. If they have a bad performance, you don’t know what can happen but I’m always there to help him and if he gets a fight, when he gets a fight, we’ll see what we can do.”

Davison’s star-studded stable includes Moses Itauma, Leigh Wood, Royston Barney-Smith and Aloys Junior, and the promoter Eddie Hearn – who has recently celebrated the anniversary of 12 years working with Joshua – has indicated his heavyweight attraction will return before the end of the year. There is still hope, in some quarters, that Joshua and Tyson Fury will fight in 2026. 

Joshua, 28-4 (25 KOs), has spoken of his desire to avenge defeats, and Davison is unsure at what level his return might come. 

“I think you have to see how he feels once he starts training again,” Davison added. “It’s been a long time; he’s had operations; injuries; see how he feels before you go, right, ‘Okay’. It might be a case of he might need a tune up. Again, in the heavyweights, the landscape can change so quickly and if an opportunity pops up and you’re ready, you never know.”