ANTHONY JOSHUA told Eddie Hearn he would rather beat Oleksandr Usyk himself than step aside for Tyson Fury.
Joshua is contracted to an immediate rematch with Ukrainian, having been dethroned of the WBA, IBF and WBO titles in September.
But there was a push from the Middle East for Usyk to instead fight Fury in the first-ever four-belt heavyweight undisputed title decider.
As a result, Joshua was offered a step-aside fee to allow the unification in Saudi Arabia but a deal collapsed.
Hearn said on The MMA Hour: “The only other thing I was looking at because there was a lot of money on the table was this other deal, but there’s no other fight.
“Again, that’s the fight, and that’s the fight that AJ wanted. He will make changes to his training team.
“But when I sat down with him last Monday about the step aside, he said, ‘I’ll beat Usyk.’
“I said, ‘But you haven’t started working with your new trainer yet.’ He said, ‘I’ll beat him without a trainer.‘
“He’s pumped for that fight, and it’s a really tough fight.”
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Joshua, 32, and Fury’s mandatory challenger Dillian Whyte, 33, were said to have agreed separate step-aside deals.
But at the 11th hour talks broke down meaning AJ is now in line to rematch Usyk this summer.
And Fury, 33, will now proceed with his mandatory title defence against long-time rival Whyte, targeted for April 23 in Cardiff.
The Gypsy King’s side accused AJ of demanding £3.7m to sit out, which caused the deal to fall through.
But Hearn previously hit back and insisted Fury wanted a warm-up fight before Usyk, 35, and claimed he never wanted to face the southpaw in the first place.
He said: “By the way, Fury is no mug. He knows how good Usyk is. That’s why he didn’t want to fight him off the bat.
“He’s really good. So it’s a tough fight for AJ. I just hope that AJ gets the credit for the fights that he takes.
“How many fighters honestly would have taken the Usyk fight if they were in Joshua’s position?
“How many would have vacated the belt and gone, ‘Oh, no, we’re going down another route.’
“He wants this fight, and now he’s fighting him again straight off the bat. So May time is when we’re planning on doing that fight in the UK.”
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