World Heavy Weight Champion Antony Joshua has confirmed that his next fight will be against mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev. Joshua announced on his Twitter page that the fight in on and will take place on October 28th at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Pulev is the mandatory challenger for the IBF title and Joshua would have been stripped of the belt had he turned down the fight. He will be putting his IBF, WBA and IBO titles on the line when the 2 clash in October.

The fight comes six months after Joshua knocked out boxing great Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium. Joshua was contracted to face a rematch with Klitschko before he decided to retire last month.

Joshua said:  “On October 28th, I’ll be defending my IBF, WBA and IBO heavyweight championship of the world against a fighter called Kubrat Pulev. He’s game, he’s ready and it’s been a long time coming.”

Pulev has only lost 1 fight in his career and that was against Klitschko who knocked him out in November 2014. Since then he has won 5 fights in a row to become the mandatory challenger.

Barry Hearn confirmed the plan was to fight Pulev and then Cuban Luis Ortiz, the mandatory challenger for his WBA title. This would set him up for a unification fight with WBC title holder Deontay Wilder next year. If Joshua was to come through the Pulev and Ortiz fights unscathed the Wilder fight is likely to have massive media attention.’

The Pulev fight is expected to sell out in Wales and be in front of a massive 80,000 people.The fight will also be available on Sky Box Office.