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Dillian Whyte vs Joe Joyce, Lawrence Okolie vs Richard Riakporhe announced

Queensberry have announced a bumper British card set for April 5 in Manchester, England, with heavyweights Dillian Whyte and Joe Joyce locking horns in the main event.

The undercard features Lawrence Okolie taking on Richard Riakporhe in another all-British heavyweight clash.

Whyte (31-3, 28KOs), returns to fight in England for the first time since 2022 against Joyce (16-3, 15KOs), who is looking to bounce back from three defeats in his last four fights.

Joyce already has a fight lined up against Patrick Korte on March 1 in Bournemouth, so faces a tight turnaround ahead of his clash with Whyte.

It's a high-stakes fight for both, with Whyte coming off a period of inactivity that ended in a tune-up bout with Ebenezer Tetteh in December, while Joyce has struggled since back-to-back defeats to Zhilei Zhang in 2023.

English champion David Adalaye will face Jeamie "TKV" Tshikeva to round off the blockbuster heavyweight bill dubbed "heavy impact."

The April card is the first of three Queensberry shows that were announced on Monday, while Frank Warren also confirmed the signing of former undisputed junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor.

On May 10, former IBF super featherweight champion Northern Ireland's Anthony Cacace will fight Nottingham's Leigh Wood.

Later that month, Taylor will return to the ring in Glasgow, fighting Ekow Essuman.

"We are starting as we mean to go on and, as you might expect, the heavyweights will play a big, big part in 2025 and beyond," Warren said.

"Then Nottingham is the place to be the following month for a real banger of a fight between Cacace and Wood. It is the sort of domestic blockbuster we will be seeing plenty of across the partnership between Queensberry and DAZN."

Cacace recently vacated the IBF strap that he won by knocking out Joe Cordina in May last year.

While the decision to vacate came as a surprise, Cacace teased that big fights were behind the decision with an intriguing clash with Wood the result.

Monday's announcement also brings the return of Taylor, who lost to Jack Catterall in a thrilling rematch last May.

Taylor was at his peak in 2022 when he claimed a controversial decision victory over Catterall, but he lost to Teofimo Lopez in June 2023.

While he looked good in the Catterall rematch, he came up short on points, leaving him a long way back in the pecking order of a highly competitive junior welterweight division.