Anthony Joshua punches Francis Ngannou during the Heavyweight fight between Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou on the Knockout Chaos boxing card at the Kingdom Arena on 8th March 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Anthony Joshua undid Francis Ngannou first victory in boxing and put himself squarely in title contention with a second-round knockout win at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Friday night.
Joshua drew first blood in the opening round. Ngannou appeared to be getting comfortable when the Brit dropped him with a clean right hand.
A crushing right hand once again found a home and sent Ngannou to the mat. Joshua came out in the second round ready to prove the knockdown was no fluke.. The former UFC champion beat the count only to have Joshua immediately flatten him again, bringing the end of the fight.
Since after the suffering of back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk, Joshua has been working himself up to another title shot . Since dropping the second fight by split decision he has earned wins over Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius and Otto Wallin.
A win over Ngannou actually means quite a bit after his performance in his professional boxing debut. The former UFC heavyweight champion stunned the world when he battled Tyson Fury to a split-decision loss in his first foray into the sweet science.
Ngannou was surprisingly good, and his fight-changing power translated to boxing better than most expected.
Analysts were much less impressed with Ngannou’s boxing skills this time around:
Joshua, who has struggled at times with his confidence, was able to put that behind him and beat a powerful, strong opponent this time around. If promoter Eddie Hearn is correct, this was just a steppingstone to Joshua once again holding a world title.
“I’m telling you now: if we get through Friday, which may be our toughest challenge, he’s going to do it all,” Hearn told Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie. “He’ll beat Fury and knock him out. But let’s just watch through the fingers on Friday and hope we come out good.”
Now that Joshua has come out brilliant, the attention could shift to a bout with Tyson Fury. Both men have left their mark on the heavyweight division but they still have yet to fight each other.
Fury is scheduled to fight Usyk in May. If The Gypsy King comes out of that fight unscathed, we could have a huge heavyweight championship bout on our hands.
As for Ngannou, it will be interesting to see how much more he continues to pursue boxing. He is set to take on Renan “Problema” Ferreira in an MMA fight at some point after the heavyweight champion knocked out Ryan Bader in 21 seconds in February to retain his PFL title.
Osabuohien I. Daniel.
