Joshua ‘rejected’ fight with McKean due to troublesome quality

The former frontrunner to face Anthony Joshua next, Demsey McKean, has revealed that their fight ‘fizzled out’ because he is a southpaw. Joshua lost his last two fights to a fellow lefty, Oleksandr Usyk, and McKean believes this was the decisive factor in ruling him out of a career-best payday.

The Aussie puncher emerged as an unlikely outsider to box Joshua in his return to the ring in April, but it is now understood that Jermaine Franklin has jumped to the front of the queue. Express Sport understands that an agreement is thought to close with the American set to receive a guaranteed purse of around £800,000.

In addition to his set wage, the 989 Assassin will also be entitled to a chunk of the PPV sale which according to sources could bump his overall payday up to in excess of £2million. For McKean, this type of money would have been life-changing.

“It’s obviously a fight that I’d love to take any day of the week,” McKean told Boxing Social. “It’s a big opportunity fight, big name fight, and does wonders for my career to come through with the win.

“The only thing is it’s started to fizzle out a little bit [given] the whole southpaw thing,” he added. “The story of my life, nothing I’m not used to. He doesn’t want to fight a southpaw coming off a couple losses to a southpaw – which is devastating.

“It’s quite sad these guys don’t like to fight certain fighters due to their stance. The Dillian Whyte fight – he pulled out and didn’t want to follow through with the contract due to me being a southpaw. It definitely wouldn’t be happening in the old days, mate, that’s for sure. Times have changed.”

If a fight with Franklin can’t be made, then there are plenty of other names that have been mentioned in the same conversation by promoter Eddie Hearn. Besides McKean, credible top 15 competitors Otto Wallin, Zhang Zhilei, and Filip Hrgovic have all been teased as potential options. However, Express Sport has been told that gatekeeper Gerald Washington is ‘on standby’ if things don’t go to plan.