Joshua is set to return to the ring in September at Wembley StadiumCredit: GETTY

In April, Joshua told talkSPORT that there are four names on the shortlist to be his next opponent.

The former heavyweight champion insisted that whomever put in the best performance out of Deontay Wilder vs Zhilei Zhang and Hrgovic vs Dubois on June 1 will be the frontrunner to face him.

However, Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, has since told the MMA Hour that the winner of Wilder vs Zhang is no longer in the running.

“We have Joshua’s fight in September it all depends on the result of the Hrgovic fight [with Dubois],” he said.

“Because now we have locked Wilder to Jared Anderson in the card in Los Angeles.”

Wilder, who has seen several opportunities to fight Joshua in the past fall by the wayside, is being targeted for an all-American clash against exciting up-and-comer Jared Anderson on the undercard of Terence Crawford vs Israil Madrimov on August 3.

This is dependent on Wilder ‘looking good against Zhang’ in his next outing.

The assumption was that this meant Wilder needed to win the fight but Alalshikh claims that is not the case.

Joshua will face the winner of Dubois vs HrgovicCredit: Mark Robinson /Matchroom

“Not especially win, he just has to look good and not pick up any injuries,” he added.

Providing he wins his bout in September the next fight for Joshua will be against Tyson Fury who is set to face Oleksandr Usyk for all the belts in the glamour division on May 18.

The heavyweight titans have a two-way rematch clause written into their contracts with the second contest set to take place on October 12/13.

Once Fury and Usyk have completed their contractual obligations, Joshua will then enter the fray with a fight against ‘The Gypsy King’ being targeted for March 2025.

AJ recently touched down in Saudi Arabia ahead of the four-belt shootout and is expected to be ringside for the fight.

He will be watching on with intrigue as it holds massive implications for his future.

It is unlikely he will be granted a third fight with Usyk after convincingly losing both his bouts with the Ukrainian in September 2021 and August 2022.

So despite picking Usyk to win, Joshua will surely be secretly rooting for Fury.