By Frank Warren, courtesy of The Daily Star

ANTHONY YARDE will finally get his wish when he challenges for the WBO world light heavyweight title later this year.

I am a massive fan of the Ilford fighter and, as his promoter, have been watching him edge closer and closer to a title tilt.

Now the WBO have declared that Yarde will meet the winner of next Saturday’s fight between champion Eleider Alvarez and Sergey Kovalev.

Yarde has moved smoothly up the rankings to No.2 with an unbeaten record of 17 fights that has seen him stop 16 of his opponents inside the distance.

He next meets Frenchman Mehdi Amar in Leicester on February 23 and then he can start preparing for the biggest fight of his career.

And I have every faith in him turning on the style against either Alvarez or Kovalev because he has always been seeking such a challenge.

He’s always pushing me to put him in against the best and now, at last, he has been granted his wish – and I just know he will be determined to succeed.

You can take a look at both of his potential opponents, Alvarez and Kovalev, when their title fight is screened on BoxNation.

Meanwhile, Manny Pacquiao has opened up the intriguing prospect of another megabucks clash with Floyd Mayweather.

At 40, he’s obviously seen better days but he turned in a thoroughly convincing show to defeat Adrien Broner in Las Vegas.

He claimed a unanimous points win to retain his WBA world welterweight title and, like most boxing fans, I would love to see a rematch with Mayweather.

He was a convincing winner and Broner must have been off his head to claim that he thought he was the victor.

Now ‘Pacman’ wants Mayweather again.

Five-weight world champion Mayweather is retired but could easily come out of that at the age of 41 for a rematch with Pacquiao.

It’s a fight that would certainly capture the public’s imagination and I’m sure that there would be no shortage of pay-per-view takers throughout the world.

Mayweather beat Pacquiao via a unanimous decision in 2015 and I can see a return bout producing the same outcome.

It’s all about styles and I can’t see a second fight being any different from the first.