Kevin Mitchell is turning his attentions to the WBA world lightweight title and hopes to fight the winner of Darleys Perez v Anthony Crolla, which takes place on July 18 live on Sky Sports.
Londoner Mitchell, 30, suffered more world title agony on May 30 when he was stopped in the 10th round by WBC champion Jorge Linares, but he is determined to bounce back once more and finally achieve his childhood dream.
Mitchell (39-3-0, 29 KOs) told Boxing News: "I’m not being big-headed or anything but I look at the weight division and I’m the biggest threat to the current world champions. I would fight any of the champions.
"I’d fight the winner of Darleys Perez-Anthony Crolla, that makes sense. Hopefully Crolla beats him and I can fight Crolla."
Mitchell, who lost to Michael Katsidis for the WBO interim belt in 2010 and to Ricky Burns for the full version of the same title two years later, had seemed keen on a rematch with Linares, only to learn that the Venezuelan had signed up to make his next defence on home soil.
Mitchell said: "I’m not that confident of making the rematch with Linares. These fighters say they’ll fight me and then offer me £10,000.
"Him saying he’ll fight me in Venezuela is like him saying, ‘I don’t want to fight you’ because it won’t make any money, what’s he going to sell, like 500, 1,000 tickets? It doesn’t make sense.
"He talks about fighting in Venezuela but I bet he doesn’t sell any tickets there because he always fights in America or Japan, he’s all over the place. He doesn’t sell tickets, he’s a three-weight world champion and hardly anyone knows him."
On the defeat itself, Mitchell added: "I had him beat, he knows I had him beat. What annoys me about our first fight are the head clashes, even though we were in my country.
"He head butted me once and then kept doing it, I had two cuts over my left eye, he butted me on the bridge of my nose and reopened a cut there.
"You would expect him to get away with that if we were fighting in Venezuela, but not in my country. The only reason he won was because of the cuts, it’s clear that he knows I had him beat but if he wants to get it on, let’s get it on."