Sports promoter, Eddie Hearn has revealed that Anthony Joshua will be defending his heavyweight championship belt against Kubrat Pulev later this year.

However, the much-anticipated match might take place behind closed doors due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Anthony Joshua and Kubrat Pulev were due to face each other at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20 but the coronavirus pandemic forced the clash to be cancelled.

He told ESPN: “We know AJ’s only going to fight once this year, so we want to give ourselves the best opportunity to bring in a crowd, and that would obviously be the later the better.

“But it’s still not a gimme at all. There’s still a very strong chance that AJ will have to fight behind closed doors.

“Bearing in mind he’s only going to fight once this year, I just feel as we might as well give ourselves every chance to have a crowd and that will be the first weekend of December.

“Their regulations comply with the government, so at the moment they’re closed.

“So they would need to open up. We’d need to get an understanding from the government what is allowed in arenas. Are you going to open at 50 per cent [capacity]? Are you going to open up 100 per cent? There’s a lot of work that has to go into that with the government and the O2 (Arena).”

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