The coronavirus outbreak has wiped the sports schedule clean with a series of postponements and cancellations.
In boxing, promoters like Eddie Hearn are trying to piece together contingency plans, but even then there's great uncertainty due to the unknown timetable of the world dealing with this global pandemic. As Hearn thinks about it, he believes the aftermath of COVID-19 could create a scenario where an undisputed heavyweight championship fight between unified world champ Anthony Joshua and WBC titleholder Tyson Fury actually takes precedence over AJ's mandatory defense against Kubrat Pulev slated for June 20.
And Hearn says this knowing that there's a contract in place for Fury to face Deontay Wilder in a trilogy fight after their bout last month, when the "Gypsy King" bulldozed Wilder via seventh-round TKO.
"Well I think, all of a sudden, does the Joshua-Fury fight start taking priority, maybe over a Pulev fight, if the Pulev fight extends beyond the summer? There's so much that could happen right now," Hearn told Sky Sports. "I mean anything is possible, but contractually Deontay Wilder is going to want his fight next, whether that's in July or whether there's a force majeure that takes that to October, November wherever.
"Right now, for us, we're fighting Kubrat Pulev, June 20, and it could be July 25," Hearn continued, "but everything is uncertain at the moment, whilst the country and the world tries to contain this pandemic."
Earlier in the week, Hearn tried to wrap his head around all the moving parts of his contingency plan for rescheduling Matchroom Boxing's fights.
"May is going ahead, but we also understand we have contingencies in place to move Dillian Whyte to the middle of June, to move Dereck Chisora and (Oleksandr) Usyk back to the end of June, early July and of course, Anthony Joshua, who is due to go June 20 at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, (which) really runs on the Premier League now," he explained.
"Because if the Premier League extends their season, the Spurs will need their stadium. We already have a reserved date that we are discussing with the Spurs of July 25 for Anthony Joshua vs. Kubrat Pulev at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. If we are talking about no boxing until then, this sport is going to start to struggle significantly."
Of course, any of these fights happening are still pending on how different regions of the world continue to deal with COVID-19.