It appears that Anthony Joshua is not wasting any time turning the page after missing out on a major fight against Tyson Fury.

Fury abruptly announced his retirement on Monday at age 36.

A matchup between Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) and Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) finally appeared imminent because both of the former heavyweight title holders were coming off losses.

Joshua, 35, pushed for the fight soon after Fury suffered his second consecutive loss to Oleksandr Usyk on December 21, stressing that time was running out. Fury, meanwhile, kept a mostly low profile since the Usyk defeat until dropping his latest retirement announcement this week.

Hours after learning that Fury was calling it quits on his career yet again, Matchroom Boxing head and Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn was adamant that Fury is fooling the public with retirement talk.

On Wednesday, Hearn shared that he’s already plotting his next moves for Joshua.

“People are putting me on the spot and asking who else [either than Fury]?” Hearn said after the Lewis Crocker-Paddy Donovan launch press conference. “What I said was our two preferred options are Tyson Fury and the winner of [Daniel] Dubois against [Joseph] Parker [on February 22]. But, if Tyson Fury never fights again, and we don’t get the winner of Dubois-Parker, AJ is still going to fight. He’s ready to almost return to camp, he wants to fight around May or June.

“They asked me for some names. [Martin] Bakole got his back up the other day, a little bit with the call out. There could potentially be a big fight in Africa. I think that’s an unlikely fight. Deontay Wilder is a fight, I think coming off the defeat people would still love to see, if Wilder comes back with a win, looks like he’s scheduled to fight again. Dillian Whyte is another name that has been floated around. I don’t know. These are just names I’m plucking out, because AJ will fight. He will start camp at the end of this month. And we will see what happens with Tyson Fury in the meantime. I can’t see Mr. Fury leaving this fight on the table ... we shall see.”

On Saturday during The Ring awards, Joshua said he was all in on a Fury fight being next.

“[The Fury fight is] a fight that I want to see, because I’m a fan of boxing, so I want to get that out of the way,” said Joshua.

“I ain’t got many years ahead of me. I've had more years behind me than I have in front of me. So I want to leave the game with a bang and make an impact: be outlandish, great character, have fun with it while we’re doing it and go for the big fights, and Tyson Fury is one of them.

“Every time I see people, they’re saying, 'When are you fighting Fury?' The Irish community, the English community, the Nigerian community – everyone is asking me the same question. So as a fighter it’s up to me to deliver. It has to happen this year.”

Hearn stressed that Fury is forcing the retirement issue in order to get more money during negotiations.