The 26 year-old has campaigned in London for his past five fights, claiming the world title and pushing his record to 17-0 in the process when packing out the O2 Arena with a series of brutal knockouts.
Making the O2 his home seemed the right move for London-born Joshua due to the location, although the former Millenium Dome still remains behind Manchester Arena in overall seating capacity.
This could mean Joshua is about to return to Manchester for the first time since a September 2014 stoppage of Konstantin Airich on the Anthony Crolla / Scott Quigg double-header against Gamaliel Diaz and Stephane Jamoye respectively.
Logically and logistically, Manchester is the only other option big enough to cope with the demand of housing a Joshua title defence, meaning a fighter from the UK with ties to the north-west would be an ideal opponent.
Enter David Price, who is approaching his second comeback fight of the year on October 15 in Liverpool and would be readily available for the November 26 date pencilled in for Joshua’s next appearance.
‘Pricey’ look assured when scoring a victory in two rounds on the Tony Bellew v Ilunga Makabu bill at Goodison Park in May and aims to follow that up on the upcoming WBC title undercard at the Echo Arena.
Matching Joshua versus Price would be huge for the United Kingdom as the country rides the crest of a wave with 14 current world champions and a mass of huge fights taking place on British soil in the coming weeks.
The last time two Brits fought for a world heavyweight title was back in 2010 when David Haye blasted out Audley Harrison on Sky Box Office, although there are those who would argue that the full title at the time belonged to Wladimir Klitschko.
You’d have to go further back to 1997 when Lennox Lewis took out British-born Henry Akinwande via a fifth round DQ to retain the WBC heavyweight title in Nevada to a fully recognised championship being on the line.
Price was recently repositioned in the Top 15 of the world rankings due to upheld drug allegations against previous opponent Erkan Teper and could be the man chosen by Hearn and Joshua should they so wish to go down that route.
Berman Stiverne has seemingly been ruled out following a WBC interim title chance being stipulated against Alexander Povetkin, whilst Bryant Jennings and Eric Molina are two of only a handful of US options open to Matchroom for the date.
