Anthony Joshua could be offered a comeback fight in Nigeria early next year.
In September of last year, Joshua lost an IBF world heavyweight title fight to Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium.
Subsequently he has had to recover from an injury, but the former world champion is now looking at options for his return to the sport.
His team have considered Ghana as a potential location for Joshua’s next contest, but an offer also looks set to be made to host a fight in Nigeria.
Promoter Dr Ezekiel Adamu recently staged a boxing event in Lagos in association with Amir Khan. “It was an amazing success,” Adamu told Sky Sports News. “A new opening for boxing in Africa.
“The reception has been great, from the locals, the boxing world, the government as well.”
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Adamu is eager for AJ to fight in Nigeria. “We’ve had a preliminary conversation and we’ll keep going,” he said. “We’re looking at Q1 next year.
“We all know AJ’s always said he wants to fight in Africa before the end of his career and we believe Nigeria is actually the best story.
“Nigeria has the highest population in the whole of Africa, about 250 million people. Nigeria is the economic capital of the whole of Africa. The list goes on and on. We believe that we are actually poised to make that happen.”
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Congolese heavyweight Martin Bakole is a former sparring partner of Joshua’s. After losing to Joseph Parker at short notice and drawing with Efe Ajagba, Bakole is eager for a major fight.
He volunteered his services to take on Joshua.
“I’d take the fight with Anthony Joshua in a heartbeat. We are both African fighters, and now we’re seeing boxing come back to Africa,” Bakole told Sky Sports.
“Anthony Joshua doesn’t want to fight me. He knows what happened in sparring. If we get in the ring I’m going to knock him out. Without doubt.
“I’ll even knock him out in Nigeria, in front of his own crowd. This is the fight to make. And we need to make it in Africa. It’ll be the Rumble in the Jungle II.”
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Adamu acknowledged: “He is an option. There’s a lot of options being thrown at us for this particular fight but – yes – Martin Bakole is here.
“We have a lot of options that we’ll be looking at and we believe that we’ll come up with something really exciting that will excite the whole world and obviously bring proper excitement to Africa as well, especially Nigeria.”
