Joshua Buatsi in talks to fight Anthony Yarde despite securing world title fight

08 February 2024 , 18:57

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Joshua Buatsi in talks to fight Anthony Yarde despite securing world title fight

British light-heavyweights Joshua Buatsi and Anthony Yarde have opened talks for a potential domestic clash.

Mirror Fighting understands the teams have already begun negotiations for the fight just days after Buatsi banked himself a mandatory world title shot by outpointing friend-turned-rival Dan Azeez. Buatsi extended his unbeaten streak to 18 fights with the win and is now next in line to fight for Dmitry Bivol's WBA world title.

Bivol is scheduled to face Artur Beterbiev for the undisputed light-heavyweight world titles on June 1 and it seems Buatsi is now prepared to shelf his mandatory position for a fight with Yarde, who fights Marko Nikolic on Saturday. "Every time we see each other we speak, we’ve put it out there that we want to fight each other," Yarde said of Buatsi.

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"He just had a fight and I’ve got a fight this Saturday, so that’s my only focus. There is no secret, I feel like it’s a mega-fight for British boxing. There’s always been this rivalry between me and Buatsi since he turned professional. I was at the name at the time and he was an Olympian, so our names were linked straight away.

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"There was automatically that fan anticipation for the fight to happen down the line, but down the line is here. He’s still undefeated, currently, I’ve been in a couple serious world title fights and come up short. I feel like I’m the better fighter and I feel like that is a potential fight to happen this year. This fight has made sense for a while now."

Buatsi recognised that Bivol and Beterbiev will likely rematch later this year after their June 1 meeting, delaying his world title shot until next year at the earliest. Francis Warren, son of Queensbury Promotions boss Frank, is hoping the domestic clash can happen in the coming months.

“We’d like that fight to happen in May or June. Bivol and Beterbiev are fighting on June 1st, so it’s not going to be for around 10 months anyway before Buatsi gets his shot. It’s going to be a little while before a mandatory is ordered because of that unification coming up. That adds some spice to it and you could even put that up for grabs for the winner," he said.

Harry Davies