Anthony Joshua to Defend IBF World Heavyweight Title Against Dominic Breazeale

Yesterday it was announced that newly-minted IBF world heavyweight champion Anthony "AJ" Joshua will make the first defence of his title against American Dominic "Trouble" Breazeale at the O2 Arena in London.

It isn't exactly the stellar name boxing fans were hoping for. But, at just 16 fights into his career, it's a safe option to build Joshua at this point. Though, that line of thinking seems plain wrong considering his already a world champion. But, that's the situation we find ourselves in the present world of boxing and its lack of structure and lineal champions.

To be fair to Alhambra, California native Breazeale, his is unbeaten in his career—winning 15 of his 17 fights by way knockout. Breazeale's last outing saw him defeat Amir Mansour to become the WBC Continental Americas heavyweight champion. At six-foot-seven, Breazeale has one inch on AJ, but Trouble is the man with the slightly shorter reach.

The pair's paths could have crossed in their former lives as amateurs. However, while Joshua walked away from the 2012 Olympics in London as a gold medal-winner, Breazeale faced an early exit in the competition having lost in the first round of competition.

In the official press release, Joshua said: "I am looking to get past Breazeale in style and continue moving towards the unification fight everybody is waiting for. It's sure to be explosive—both of us like to let our hands go and score knockouts."

Ignoring the standard, unspectacular fare of hyping up this fight, the truth of the matter is that Breazeale is only ranked 13th in the IBF rankings—below AJ's fellow Brits Dereck Chisora and David Haye.

This is a fact many of Joshua's peers in the heavyweight division take issue with. Surprisingly, Tyson Fury is one of those prominent voices—taking shots at both Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn.

Fury and Joshua have traded barbs over the last year. But, that activity significantly ramped up in the lead-up to Joshua's IBF world title fight against Charles Martin, who he handily dispatched inside two rounds.

Fury initially won Joshua's IBF world heavyweight title along with the WBA (Super), WBO, IBO, The Ring and lineal championships when he won a unanimous decision over Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko. But, the Gypsy King was forced to vacate the IBF belt as he opted for a rematch against Klitschko rather than take on IBF's mandatory challenger in Vyacheslav Glazkov.

Fury unsubtly alludes to this in his rant on social media, saying Joshua and his promoter Hearn "robbed" the belt they're defending on June 25th. Not one to pull verbal jabs himself, Hearn retaliated on Twitter challenging Fury to attempt at winning his old belt back.

Besides the above tweets, Fury said: "Can't believe how much of a pussy Eddie Hearn really is. With his little bitch flex [Joshua], [Hearn has] poached every fighter in the UK. Sidewinder Eddie!" I may have neatened those couple of sentences somewhat.

That message was before Fury claimed he will take 80% of the purse to Joshua's 20% when the fight between the two inevitably materialises. There was further promotional gold dust with Fury tweeting: "Anthony Joshua and Eddie Hearn wouldn't last five minutes in my world. They're a pair of proper pussies who both need a slap from me—a real man."

Former world heavyweight title contender Eddie Chambers also entered the fray, claiming Breazeale was custom-built for an easy win for the Watford-born Joshua.

Despite the unnecessary profanity and personal jibes made towards Joshua, Fury, along with Chambers, does indeed have a point.

The truth of the matter is that Breazeale is only ranked 13th by the IBF, while the WBC positioned him in 15th. Meanwhile, other reputable organisations within boxing such as the WBA and WBO do not feature Trouble in their respective top 15 rankings.

But, then this is Anthony Joshua—inarguably the hottest talent in heavyweight boxing—fighting. London's O2 Arena will be filled to the rafters with tickets sold at a premium and the British pay-per-view audience will buy into this fight no matter what and that's in spite of the UK population's general aversion to paying extra for one-off sports events on top of their existing TV packages.

An additional fight was announced with much more credibility, however. British super-middleweights George Groves and Martin Murray will square off in the undercard in a WBA world title eliminator. At least this event retains some semblance of integrity with this match-up.