Anthony Joshua is expected to be in Riyadh this weekend for Saturday night's 'Last Crescendo' card headlined by Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol - but it's the co-feature he'll have his eye on.

AJ (28-4, 25 KOs), The Ring's No. 7 heavyweight, has been mulling over his next move since suffering a devastating fifth-round knockout defeat to Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) last September, but it was widely-assumed a showdown with Tyson Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) would follow.

Fury has since 'retired', however, and Joshua now faces a potential rematch with Dubois, should he win this weekend against Joseph Parker (35-2, 23 KOs) in his second IBF heavyweight title defence.

Joshua may struggle at the negotiating table for that fight, though, with WBA/WBO/WBC/The Ring titleholder Oleksandr Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) waiting in the wings and seeking the opportunity to become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion.

Dubois has also made clear his intentions to get in the ring with Usyk for a second time, having lost to the Ukrainian by ninth-round TKO in August 2023.

But Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn is adamant the Watford man only wants a shot at the heavyweight title if the Fury fight isn't on the table - and Usyk isn't an option.

Hearn told iFL TV: "Josh will be back and he'll be back with a vengeance. He'll be here for the fight, I haven't spoken to him about opponents but post-Saturday we'll get the ball rolling to plan AJ's next move.

"I think without Tyson Fury, AJ's number one priority is to fight for the world heavyweight title, and he's not going to be fighting Usyk.

"So it's [the winner] of Saturday night [between Dubois and Parker]. The only things I know are AJ wants to fight Fury and he wants to fight for the world heavyweight title, that's it."

In December 2024, Fury lost for the second consecutive time to Usyk and the Gypsy King wasn't best pleased with the judges' scorecards, which all read 116-112 in favour of the former undisputed cruiserweight champion.

Since then, Fury has stayed away from the public eye after hanging up his gloves in the middle of January, and there have been no talks regarding a comeback.

Hearn says that could all change in the coming weeks.

He said: "Maybe there's a conversation in a week or two weeks or three weeks time where we say to Fury, 'just to let you know, you don't wanna fight AJ, in the summer, or August, September, because if you want to come out of retirement, now is the time to do it'."