For the moment, Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) does not feel any pressure to defend the IBF, WBA, IBO heavyweight world titles in the United States.
The British superstar has never fought outside of the UK as a pro, and sees no reason to do so at the present.
Joshua has 90,000 fans come out for last April TKO win over Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium in London, and the 78,000 packed the house for his fight with Carlos Takam at Cardiff's Principality Stadium.
Joshua will unify with WBO world champion Joseph Parker on March 31, back at Principality.
After that, a potential mandatory defense against the WBA's top rated challenger, Alexander Povetkin of Russia.
And then Joshua would like a unification with WBC champion Deontay Wilder at the end of the year.
But don't count on any of those future contests heading over to the United States. Joshua does not want to fight in America for the sake of saying he did so - and he's not very motivated to fight in a venue that might sell 15 or 20,000 tickets.
"Because it's all about where the market is and it's so strong here, it's brilliant here, so why would we leave it? I wouldn't mind going to the States if people were to say, 'Look, Josh, this will cement your legacy, this is a great opportunity to go to America', I'll definitely think about it," Joshua told Nick Parkinson.
"But where no one has said it, and it'd be like, 'Let's just go to Vegas because everyone else has done it', I don't want to do it for that. What we did with [Wladimir] Klitschko at Wembley was phenomenal. I still train at Finchley ABC so a lot of my support is home-based. I always say it gives people an opportunity from my local area to travel half an hour to Wembley for one of the biggest fights in boxing history.
"That's why I don't want to travel to America, not just for the sake of it, because it limits a lot of people from being able to come and watch me."
2023-10-20 09:04:21
