Eddie Hearn, promoter for former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, is very excited about the upcoming rematch with Andy Ruiz, who now holds the WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA titles.
Back on June 1, Ruiz shocked the world when he stopped Joshua in seven rounds to capture the world titles.
Joshua went down four times before a shocked crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Ruiz was a tremendous underdog in the fight. He accepted the fight on late notice after initial opponent Jarrell Miller was pulled from the contest after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs in three separate test administered by testing agency VADA.
Now the rematch is being lined up for the end of the year, as Joshua has exercised an immediate rematch clause.
Prior to the loss to Ruiz, everyone was approaching Joshua with questions about facing WBC champion Deontay Wilder, cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk, Dillian Whyte, and several others.
For the first time in several years, nobody is talking about Joshua's plans beyond the next fight.
“This rematch is going to be massive, and how exciting is this going to be?” Hearn said to IFL TV.
“I spoke to AJ the other night and said to him; ‘don’t you think it’s weird that every fight you’ve had since the [Wladimir] Klitschko fight, everyone’s talking about the fight after. This is the first fight you’ve had since Klitschko that nobody is talking about the next fight.’
“He said it’s quite refreshing. To be honest, I didn’t know what we were going to do in December. Maybe that’s me trying to talk myself into thinking positively about the situation, but I don’t think negatively about situations.”