TOPLESS Anthony Joshua is plotting his next move – on the chessboard and in his career.
The British superstar, 31, took to Instagram on Monday evening to show his 12.3million followers how he spent his Bank Holiday.
AJ made the most of the glorious weather by stripping down to his shorts and soaking up the sun.
But the 6ft 7ins shredded boxer was in no mood just to relax and instead played a game of chess.
He cryptically captioned the post: “The queen protects the king.”
Joshua was no doubt honing his mental and strategic skills.
And he will need plenty of those as he rethinks his plan of attack in the ring.
The WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight king was expected to take on Tyson Fury this summer in the first part of their unification bout.
But those plans were put into check when Fury was ordered to fight Deontay Wilder for a third time.
That trilogy contest will take place on July 24 with Fury banning any AJ talk in his training camp.
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And that means Joshua must either take on WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk or vacate the belt.
The sudden change has forced AJ to shake up with training plan to take on the southpaw Ukrainian, a whopping six inches shorter than orthodox Fury.
Usyk’s promoter Alexander Krassyuk is in talks with Eddie Hearn and growing confident his man will get a crack at the unified titles.
Meanwhile, Hearn does not expect his flagship star to give up the WBO belt but is confident an agreement will be reached between the two parties, even if it is after today’s deadline.
The Matchroom chief said: “I feel like as long as the deal goes smoothly and no one tries to be clever, then I think that fight is quite automatic. As long as everyone’s sensible, that’s the fight.
“And I think it’s a very good fight. It’s not the Fury fight, which is the one we wanted, but it’s still a very good fight.
“I do think where we are with negotiations, we would probably say to the WBO, if there’s no deal by Tuesday, could we have another week, please? We’ll either make a deal or we’ll vacate.”
