Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury are inching closer to meeting in the ring after negotiations began for an undisputed fight later this year.
The British duo hold between them the four heavyweight world titles but are due to make separate defences in the coming months.
Joshua must take on mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev while Fury is contracted to take on Deontay Wilder for a third time.
But the coronavirus crisis has put those fights on hold and they may not take place until next year if crowds are banned from sporting events in the UK and America for the foreseeable future.
That leaves the door open for Pulev and Wilder to be paid 'step-aside' fees to allow Joshua and Fury to clash, likely in Saudi Arabia in December.
Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed he had held initial talks with Fury's management company MTK Global.
"We're talking to MTK about where that fight would take place," he told ESPN. "At the moment, the main focus for everybody [is] the contractual situations."
"The conversations between myself and MTK are that we've had an approach," Hearn said.
"We've had a number of approaches from territories to stage that fight. So the only discussions at the moment are where this fight takes place - and we don't even know when this fight could take place.
"We're certainly open to have discussions about the possibility of this happening this year or in the next fight.
"There's more chance at the moment that the bigger money could come next year because we don't even know if we can do live crowds in November, December."
Both Wilder and Pulev, however, insist they will not step aside to allow the fight to happen.
Bulgarian Pulev has twice earned a shot at Joshua but was forced to pull out injured three years ago before fighting his way back into contention.
He was due to meet Joshua at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 25 before the pandemic struck and no new date has been arranged.
Wilder, meanwhile, hoped to avenge his defeat by Fury this summer but their trilogy clash was put back first to October 3 and is now unlikely to happen before November, if at all.
