Anthony Joshua on track to fight Tyson Fury in November – Eddie Hearn

Anthony Joshua will have a warm-up fight in July before colliding with Tyson Fury in their long-awaited grudge match in November, according to promoter Eddie Hearn.

Negotiations are still ongoing but Hearn is “pretty sure” the greatest British heavyweights of their generation will finally meet later this year after a decade of circling each other.

Fury made his latest comeback following 16 months in retirement when defeating Arslanbek Makhmudov on points at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday and then called out Joshua, who refused to join him in the ring to light the fuse for their encounter.

While Joshua was refusing to commit, Netflix was busy announcing on social media that the richest fight in British boxing history had been agreed.

Hearn insists the broadcaster jumped the gun but is confident it will happen, with Joshua first needing to get rounds in the bank given his victory over YouTube star Jake Paul in December is his only appearance in 19 months.

“We received the contracts at the end of last week for their proposal of the two fights and we’ve been going back and forward and we continue to do that,” Hearn said.

“My instructions from AJ are to make the fight and that’s what we’ll be trying to do. I wouldn’t really say there are sticking points, but obviously when you receive a contract it’s very natural to go back with a lot of stuff.

“It’s nothing major, a little bit about who he fights in July, when he fights, where the fight’s going to be.

“Fury was trying to palm it off that we’ve had our warm-up fight against Jake Paul, which I thought was a bit cheeky, but I expect us to fight someone of the same kind of level as Makhmudov and then fight Fury.

“The deal that we’ve been offered is not to fight Tyson Fury straight away, and that’s our preferred option. We’re happy with that and we expect to be out in July and then fight Fury in November.”

Joshua was involved in a car crash in Nigeria in December that killed two of his close friends and in the next fortnight he is expected to be given the all-clear by medics to resume full training after sustaining injuries in the accident.

The 36-year-old has been spending time working on his conditioning in Ukraine with WBC, WBA and IBF champion Oleksandr Usyk, to whom he lost twice in 2021 and 2022.

Usyk believes his former rival is still destined for greatness and said: “AJ wins against Fury. AJ is the future undisputed heavyweight champion. I believe this because I’ve seen how Anthony is training. He’s a machine.

“I’m a fan of the soccer team Dynamo Kyiv. Sometimes my team lose. But I don’t say ‘you’re bad, you’re bad’. I say, ‘things happen, this is normal in sport’.

“We must help each other. If we don’t help each other we’re not people, we’re animals.”

Usyk’s WBC title will be on the line when he takes on Dutch kickboxing great Rico Verhoeven on May 23 in Giza, Egypt.

Verhoeven had agreed to fight Joshua only for the London 2012 gold medallist’s car crash to bring an end to that plan.