Anthony Joshua has not fought since September and may be out of the ring for a year all in.

The British two-time world heavyweight champion suffered his fourth loss in his last ring outing. It came in his attempt to become a three-time belt holder against Daniel Dubois, but he was stopped inside five rounds.

The well-ranked 35-year-old is now towards the end of his career having competed at the top for more than a decade. Initially, he was keen to take an immediate rematch with Dubois, but small ‘niggling’ injuries put paid to that and instead, he has sat out the last few months, maybe hoping for a titanic battle with long-time rival Tyson Fury.

However, after Fury was beaten on points, twice, in back-to-back fights with Oleksandr Usyk, which is what also happened to Joshua in 2021 and 2022, he announced his retirement which means that fight is off the table, for now at least. ‘AJ’s team hoped an early summer return fight with Dubois could still happen, but had also looked at other top contenders including Deontay Wilder, Agit Kabayel and Joseph Parker.

Speaking to Ring Magazine, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has now revealed that his charge has a new injury and is now faced with pushing back his return date.

“The top half of his body, I’ll give you that. It’s nothing major, but it means he’s been returning to training but he’s not quite ready to return to camp. He needs about another eight weeks until he can punch properly so you’re looking at April, May [for training] so that leads you to the back end of summer [for a fight date.]”

Many will hope that with the extra lay-off for Joshua, Fury may reverse his retirement decision and the two Brits can finally get it on. In the meantime, the wheels of the heavyweight division will continue to turn. Parker has been ordered to face unified champion Usyk, however the Ukrainian remains targetting an undisputed showdown with Dubois.