Anthony Joshua climbed off the canvas to knock out Kristian Prenga in a monumental scare for the Brit. The Albanian floored the Brit with a heavy body shot in the first round and scored another knockdown, leaving the boxing world expecting a huge shock.
The 35-year-old was expected to be cannon fodder for the Olympic gold medallist, but he looked on the verge of knocking out the Brit and ending any hope of a bout between Joshua and Tyson Fury taking place. He floored Joshua with a body shot in the opening exchanges, which left the two-time world champion reeling. But in the second round, Prenga did not jump on Joshua, despite the bell rescuing the Brit from a disastrous loss. Joshua, now fully recovered, caught Prenga with a stiff jab and right cross combination and then followed it up with a lethal combination, which left the Albanian half hanging out of the ring.
After the right, Joshua looked for Fury in Jeddah, only to quickly realise the Gypsy King was not there. He said: “Oh wait a minute, have we got Tyson Fury in the room? Wait, to more important matters, is he here or not?
“I’m going to rip his heart out, I’m the meanest and vicious world champion there has ever been, nobody can stop me. All jokes aside, there’s two sides to this.
“Fire. You need to have that vroom. But also there’s respect. I respect everything he has done and achieved, but as someone who has called for this fight for a long time, we’re here now.”
Joshua also held back the tears when he briefly spoke about his two friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, who were both killed in the horrific car crash the Brit was in while visiting Lagos, Nigeria. When asked how he amassed the power to knock out Prenga, Joshua said: “It’s more than punch power.
“That was spirit, that was Lats, that was Sina, that was the families that was. You know what I mean? Come on man. That hurts even talking about it.” When pressed on how he managed to recover from that tragedy, Joshua replied: “It’s been tough… They are my brothers, I don’t want to talk about it.”
All attention will now turn to the clash with Fury. Eddie Hearn insisted a contract for the bout has been signed, but there are still plenty of deliberations regarding the location of the bout and the precise date of the clash. It’s expected to take place in November this year