Anthony Joshua’s forthcoming fight could be another crossover clash.

After knocking out Jake Paul on Friday night, Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn addressed rumors of a planned February pitting against the prolific kickboxing champion, Rico Verhoeven.

“We've been talking about a possible fight with Turki Alalshikh [for February],” Hearn said during a press conference in Miami following Joshua’s sixth-round knockout of Paul. “A couple of opponents mentioned. The biggest challenge now is that it’s eight weeks [from] tonight. He had a very tough camp, eight or nine weeks, with a new team, who gave him a good working over.

“So, we will sit down with that team and talk about when he will be ready to return. In an ideal world, that would be the time. We’re going to see when he’s ready. Rico – or whoever it is – we haven’t finalized that yet. But the date is really what we are going to work on over the next four, five, six days. Because we’re not going to rush him back if he’s not quite ready. But it won’t be long. The plan is to fight in the spring, and then obviously fight Tyson Fury.”

Verhoeven, a 36-year-old native of the Netherlands, has a kickboxing record of 66 wins, including 21 knockouts, and 10 losses. Verhoeven vacated his GLORY heavyweight title in November after reigning as a champion for 12 years.

Verhoeven fought once as a professional boxer in 2014, scoring a second-round stoppage win. He also has a victory in the lone MMA contest of his career.

“It’s not a goodbye, it’s an until we meet again,” Verhoeven said at the time of his announcement.

While Verhoeven remains an option, Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) said his preference is to go straight into the much-discussed fight against fellow Brit and former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs).

“Hopefully in a week or two, I’ll have some news,” Joshua said. “I’m a strong guy. I want to push on.”

Hearn and Joshua emphasized that they want to go straight into the Fury fight without having to take on challenges in between. Fury announced yet another retirement in January, shortly after suffering a second consecutive decision defeat against Oleksandr Usyk.

“I’ll give the dosser eight weeks,” Joshua said in a raspy voice, mimicking Fury. “Twenty-four hours to sign the contract. Let’s see if he’s a man, greedy belly.”