Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul are in talks over a deal for a heavyweight fight in December in Miami, SportNews News understands.
Britain's two-time world heavyweight champion has been absent from the ring since he suffered a defeat by Daniel Dubois in September 2024 and is now set to return in a bout against Paul, the YouTuber turned professional fighter.
Paul had been preparing to face Gervonta Davis, but their exhibition was cancelled after a civil lawsuit was filed against the American world champion and Joshua is now in negotiations for a sensational showdown.
It's an unexpected match-up. Paul, who lost a decision to Tommy Fury in 2023, is inexperienced as a professional boxer and has only fought at heavyweight once before - in an eight-rounder against a 58-year-old Mike Tyson last year with larger-than-normal 14-ounce gloves.
Joshua, in contrast, became the Olympic super-heavyweight gold medallist in 2012. He's twice been a unified heavyweight world champion and in the one 'cross-over' bout he's participated in, he levelled former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou in just two rounds.
But Paul has maintained he is willing to run the risk. He previously told SportNews: "Take a massive risk and a massive challenge and to go into a fight where no one thinks that I would even have the slightest chance of winning, that excites me."
Eddie Hearn, Joshua's promoter, on Tuesday commented on Joshua having a potential tune-up fight as soon as December. "We will make a decision this week in terms of if he will fight this year. We have to decide by this weekend basically," Hearn told SportNews. "It doesn't really matter where it is.
"I'd love him to go in there and just smash someone up."
Paul is most famous for his YouTube career but has now won 12 fights after going pro in 2020.
"AJ-Paul is never a fight we anticipated, and it's never a fight we've targeted," Hearn has said.
"But if you want Jake Paul to be the warm-up fight [for Tyson Fury] - and obviously, financially, it's a great opportunity for AJ - and you want to provide AJ with the opportunity to extinguish Jake Paul from the world of boxing, then maybe AJ would oblige.
"Jake's a big, strong cruiserweight. I don't think he's particularly competitive, but we know in the world we live in, a lot of people would watch it.
"It may be the biggest fight that can be made, bizarrely, in the sport. I'm not going to sit here and tell you, 'yeah, it's a great challenge'.
"I think he gets flattened ASAP, but there'll be a huge amount of people globally that would want to watch that.
"If Jake Paul is crazy enough to step in the ring with Anthony Joshua, and he might be, because of the amount of money that will be at stake, who knows? You could see AJ against Jake Paul next."
