A fight between boxer Dillian Whte and UFC star Francis Ngannou could happen in 2020, according to promoter Eddie Hearn.
Hearn intends to hold talks with UFC president Dana White about organising a fight he claims to have received huge demand for.
Whyte, the WBC interim heavyweight champion, made his first and only mixed martial arts appearance in 2008 and scored a knockout in just 12 seconds, while Ngannou has stopped each of his past four UFC opponents in the first round – three of the past four inside 45 seconds.
After Ngannou suggested he wanted to test himself against one of boxing's top heavyweights, Whyte said: "Don't talk about it, let's just do it."
Having initially been sceptical about the idea, Hearn revealed the bout is on the cards for this year.
"I never really thought we would take this too seriously, but in the last week we have to take this seriously," Hearn told Sky Sports.
"The aim for Dillian Whyte is to become a world boxing champion, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Dillian Whyte against Ngannou towards the end of this year.
"Obviously we know [Alexander] Povetkin is next, but whether it's October, November, December.
"I'm going to be reaching out to Dana White and saying: 'Tell me how this works? Can we actually do this? Are we doing it in a ring? Are we doing it in a cage? Are we doing one round of each?'.
"It's really got a lot of momentum and a lot of promise. I think there's a really good chance it could happen."
Hearn said Whyte and Ngannou would display "brutality at its absolute rawest" and provide a greater spectacle than the previous crossover fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Conor McGregor in 2017.
"There's not just interest online, there is huge interest everywhere for that fight," said Hearn.
"When I first started discussing it, it was just something that had been mentioned. Fans of both disciplines have always said: 'Whyte against Ngannou is a cracker'.
"I've started to receive a lot of interest from numerous people about staging that fight now. I think it does colossal numbers.
"It's the first real, genuine crossover fight. I know we had Floyd and we had Conor, but this is a different kind of fight. This is a different kind of experience. This is brutality at its absolute rawest.
"This fight does huge numbers. It's got the boxing fans, it's got the MMA fans, it's got the intrigue. It's got everything."
