Anthony Joshua is back to winning ways after victories over Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius in his last two fights.
Those victories followed back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk in which Joshua lost and failed to regain, respectively, the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles. Since those defeats to Usyk, Joshua has been vocal about his desire to put himself back into title contention.
And while "AJ" may have to wait a while longer to get another title shot — Usyk and WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury are scheduled to meet in an undisputed title bout in the coming months — Joshua's long been linked to a fight against another former champion, Deontay Wilder.
"The Bronze Bomber" was the one who last held the WBC strap prior to losing it to Fury in 2020, and he's been discussed as a potential opponent for Joshua as the two men each aim to climb back into title contention.
If the fight does happen, another former world champion has a warning for Joshua.
"If it does happen then I think that would potentially be Anthony Joshua’s swan song," Johnny Nelson told Gambling.com.
"I think AJ will fight another opponent to get himself in a mentally good place because after looking at his last performance, he needs to fix a few things before going in against a heavy puncher like Deontay Wilder."
Should Joshua vs. Wilder become a reality, former longtime world cruiserweight champion Nelson can only see it going two ways.
"That fight will have two outcomes," Nelson said.
"It will have the outcome of Anthony Joshua beating Deontay Wilder and then standing tall to saying let’s do this Tyson Fury fight, and the potential of that fight happening becomes very real.
"The other outcome is Joshua losing to Wilder. When you run out of reasons why you don’t return to the top, you can say the reasons why it happened but it’s very hard to continue (after more defeats) and I don’t think AJ is that kind of fighter – it’s not disrespectful, it’s coming from a good place."