Top Rank president Todd DuBoef believes that Tyson Fury could fight Anthony Joshua this year.
Fury had been expected to face off with Ukrainian unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk this year, but the undisputed event has fallen through after contractual arguments could not be resolved.
That has left the WBC champion with an open calendar ahead of him, while Anthony Joshua has no clear-cut next step whether he beats Jermaine Franklin or not.
The Joshua vs. Franklin fight this Saturday will be shown live on DAZN.
"I've always said that that is the fight," DuBoef said to Sky Sports when discussing Fury vs. Joshua.
"Both of them have great brands, huge fanbases, and fortunately both of them come from the UK, so it's wonderful that your country has been able to produce these incredible prizefighters.
"That fight is always there, and, to me, is the biggest heavyweight match in the world, because of the personalities and the stories."
Discussing the abandoned plans for Fury to fight Usyk, he added: "The frustration is for all of us. All of us are frustrated, right?
"And I think timing has been an issue with trying to make this fight happen. I'm not going to say never, but I think we all want to see this unification, and we all have hope.
"But there was a timeline that was set up, and it just got ahead of everybody and it became very tight. Fortunately, there's always hope and an opportunity because I think both fighters really know that this is what the sport wants, and what they want.
"So, motivation is there, timing was more of the issue on this."
However, DuBoef thinks that both Usyk and Joshua could face Fury before the year is out.
"That's the way we move," he said. "We move with immediacy, and we move trying to figure out and get rationality to a situation.
"I think we've always wanted this fight for Fury and Joshua, and we've wanted to see Fury and Usyk, and Tyson has wanted that, and the Warrens, and we've worked hard in getting this done.
"I would love to see, and you've just laid out a great 2023 for the Fury side, if we could do Usyk and Joshua this year, it would be fantastic."