Former World Heavyweight Champion and Nigerian-born British Boxer Anthony Joshua dropped Challenger Francis Ngannou three times before brutally knocking him out in the second round at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the wee hours of this morning.
Joshua dominated the entire short dance, stunning and dropping Ngannou with a long right hand down the pipe in the opening minutes, with the Cameroonian former UFC heavyweight champion up at eight on the referee’s count.
Joshua was carefully circumventing the ring and as Ngannou switched to southpaw, looking notably to land with left and right hooks, and the Briton pounced with the most powerful of right hands.
Not getting greedy, yet not over-cautious, Joshua did not rush his work, coming out for the second round, double jabbing and keeping Ngannou at bay with level changes and feints.
As the second round played out, two-time heavyweight world champion Joshua looked in complete control, a hook over the top felling Ngannou, up again at the count of eight, with a follow-up right hand knocking Ngannou clean out, before his foe had hit the ground.
Afterward, Joshua was initially non-committal over plans for his next fight, saying: “I’ve got to speak with Eddie [Hearn], Matchroom Boxing, 258 Management, Ben Davidson and the team. They’ll shape my future, man. I’m just here to fight. I’m going to go back to my cage, lock myself away, and then I’m going to be let out when it’s time to fight again. So whatever they want me to do, I’m down for whatever.”
But when pressed whether his preferred next opponent is the winner of the 18th May fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, which will determine the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis in 2000, he is to the point: “Yes it is.”
“I’m so proud of him because there was a huge amount of pressure tonight,” Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s longtime promoter says of the winner’s performance this morning. “People talking about if he was to lose to Francis Ngannou, what would happen? He rolled the dice because of his excellence. He said, if we win this fight, we will fight the winner of Fury against Usyk. OK? There was a show here in October, it was called The Battle of the Baddest to decide the baddest man of the planet. They shouldn’t have done that in October. They should have done it tonight because you’re looking at the baddest man on the planet right there. You’re looking at the number one heavyweight in the world.
“Unquestionably, in this form, there is no man in the world that can beat him in the heavyweight division. I told you he’s going to come back. He’s going to become the undisputed heavyweight world champion. There’s a brilliant fighter down there called Tyson Fury. Please, please beat Oleksandr Usyk on May the 18th, because I promise you this, you’ll get the biggest fight in the history of this sport when Anthony Joshua takes the undisputed world championship.
Joshua has now won four fights on the trot in less than a year following his back-to-back losses to Usyk, after which there were open calls for him to retire. Asked to what he attributes his return to form, he credits his revamped backroom team.
“The Ben Davidson Performance Centre and the Lee Wylie Performance Centre with it as well,” he says. “You know who’s there and I appreciate them highly. Derrick James, Rob McCracken, Angel Fernandez, Joby Clayton, Robert Garcia, Virgil Hunter, all these guys that I worked with and it’s helped me till this day. It has helped me till this day really shaped me and I’m still learning, still pushing. I’m just hungry in it. Stay hungry and all that good stuff.”
“I told him he shouldn’t leave boxing. He can do well. remember, he’s two fights in and he’s fought the best. He can go a long way if he stays dedicated, but it’s up to him.”
Joshua landed 12 of 31 punches (29.3%), compared to eight of 42 for Ngannou (19.0%).
Notably, Joshua landed five of nine power punches in all (55.6%).
He scored knockdowns on three of those, the last of them a knockout.
The fight continues on even terms for two minutes until Ngannou goes down with about a minute left in the round, a heavy straight right-left hook combination.
And this time the Cameroonian looks in serious trouble.
Ngannou somehow makes it to his feet, but Joshua wastes no time: the Briton surges into the pocket and drops him with a heat-seeking overhand right that leaves Ngannous out cold on the canvas.
The referee Richard Gonzales immediately waves it off and it’s over!
Anthony Joshua has defeated Francis Ngannou with a savage knockout.
