Anthony Joshua will not face Wladimir Klitschko in 2016 after former champ suffers minor injury

IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will not face Wladimir Klitschko in 2016, after the Ukrainian suffered a "minor injury" in training. The 40-year-old former champion was in the running to face the Olympic gold medal-winning star in December – but the proposed bout will not now take place this year.

Instead, Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed he is eyeing a potential fight between the pair in the spring. Joshua will, however, still defend his title on 10 December, with his opponent poised to be announced in the coming days.

"We will announce that fight for the spring and give it the build-up it deserves – probably take it to a stadium as well. I'm certain it will happen in the spring," Hearn said, according to the BBC.

"We are in talks with the Millennium Stadium [now the Principality Stadium] about their dates in March and April – it has a roof and it can be a bit nippy in London in March or April."

One potential opponent who has talked up the prospect of fighting Joshua is David Price, who recently claimed to have floored his unbeaten countryman during a sparring session in 2011. The Liverpudlian is confident he can repeat the feat in a competitive bout.

"I know I can knock out Joshua because I've done it before," Price told the BBC. "I put him down [in sparring] and he had to get helped out of the ring."

Price, 33, claimed he floored Joshua in sparring a year before he won gold in London, but has chosen to remain tight-lipped about the incident. "I've kept it to myself for years because I felt bad for doing it," he explained.

"I wanted to protect the lad from people shouting him out because he got knocked out in a gym with 18oz gloves. People think Anthony Joshua is this colossus of a man with a great physique but I am convinced it can go wrong for him in a fight with me."