Anthony Joshua had American heavyweight Cassius Chaney on his shortlist before accepting a surprise fight with YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in Miami next month.
Two-time unified world heavyweight champion Joshua has now confirmed he will fight Paul in Miami on Friday December 19. It will be Joshua's first fight since his IBF world title challenge in September of last year ended in a knockout defeat to Daniel Dubois.
Paul is an unexpected opponent for Joshua, who won Olympic gold at super-heavyweight in 2012, and Chaney has confirmed that he was on a shortlist of potential opponents for Joshua to fight next.
The 38-year-old Chaney from Baltimore has fought at heavyweight throughout his pro career, which began in 2015. He has 24 wins, with three defeats in 27 bouts, and has never been stopped.
Chaney's most notable victory was a knockout win over Trevor Bryan, a former WBA heavyweight title holder in 2023.
He told SportNews that he was hoping to secure a potential fight against Joshua on this weekend's David Benavidez vs Anthony Yarde bill in Saudi Arabia.
"It sucks to lose a great opportunity but it's okay, it's the business," Chaney told SportNews. "I'm happy to be knocking at the door. Everything works out in the end."
World-ranked heavyweight Lawrence Okolie has offered to spar Paul to prepare him for his fight with Joshua.
Okolie is a former world champion at cruiserweight and also in the new 'bridgerweight' division. He's currently the No 1 ranked heavyweight contender with the WBC.
He's known Joshua for a long-time and from the early days of his amateur career has sparred with the former unified heavyweight world champion.
But he is intrigued to discover what possessed Paul to take on Joshua in a contest.
"It's crazy. I want to go help Jake Paul, give him a chance. I want to go out there to Puerto Rico. What I don't want to happen for him anyway is he gets absolutely destroyed in a round or whatever if AJ turns it on," Okolie said.
"I want him to have a little feeling of what it's like to be in there with a world class heavyweight beforehand.
"I know I have a fight coming up, I think on the same day, but I'll go out for a couple of weeks. I want to know what is it that's allowed Jake Paul to say to himself: I'm going to get in there with a 250lb muscle man from England, this big, towering guy, Olympic gold [medallist], former heavyweight world champion, two-time, in front of millions of fans.
"I need to know. Maybe he's got a secret that I don't know."
He recognises the tremendous degree to which Paul, a social media star who is really a novice professional boxer, should be out of his depth against Joshua.
"I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it's not a crazy difference in skill, difference in size, difference in all different ways," Okolie said.
"But you know what, crazier things have happened. So let's just see."
He doesn't though expect Joshua to start quickly and thinks it could last longer than a round.
"From what I've gathered of AJ I don't think he's going to in there and go: 'I'm going to hit him with a massive right hand and end it in 30 seconds,'" Okolie reflected.
But he added: "I do think though if Jake Paul starts touching him then it'll be okay [let's go]. [Joshua] hasn't been in the ring for a while, maybe he's going to use it as an exercise. However if Jake Paul clips him and doesn't take him out the first time he hits him hard, that's when I think it's going to get interesting.
"If Jake Paul hits him and doesn't take him out with the first one then it's a long night.
"It just seems crazy but crazier things have happened."
