This, folks, is what it was supposed to look like five months ago.
Two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua treated boxing newbie Francis Ngannou exactly how a world-class operator is supposed to treat a novice, exploiting a leaky defense with three devastating right hands on the way to a second-round KO in their pay-per-view showdown in Saudi Arabia.
Joshua was a significant betting favorite entering the fight, but much pre-fight chatter centered on how impressive Ngannou had looked against incumbent WBC champ Tyson Fury last October, knocking him down in the third round and stretching him to the 10-round distance before losing a split decision.
So, given Joshua’s run of mediocre high-profile performances in losses to Andy Ruiz and Oleksandr Usyk (twice) that ended his two heavyweight reigns, it wasn’t hard to find people who believed the powerful ex-UFC menace would be able to land impactful shots and finish off a mammoth upset.
Didn’t happen.
Though Ngannou strode to center ring for referee instructions with the look of a guy who’d pulled off a competitive heist to get himself another Saudi-backed paycheck, Joshua’s contrasting intensity was palpable, and his preparation was obvious.
He spent two-thirds of the opening round avoiding Ngannou’s clumsy attempts to counter jabs with quick left hooks, then stepped in as his foe ill-advisedly switched to southpaw and landed a straight right that instantly had Ngannou tumbling backward to the canvas.
The MMA veteran was up at eight and re-engaged by the end of the round, but Joshua repeated the sequence at roughly the same point of the second, following a flicking jab with an overhand right that resulted in another knockdown. Ngannou rose again, albeit a bit more gingerly, and almost instantly walked into a game-over right that folded him backward over his right leg like patio furniture.
It’s what was supposed to have happened against Fury.
But it was nevertheless jarring in its suddenness.
“I am stunned. I am a little bit speechless,” said DAZN analyst and veteran MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, who’s covered Ngannou since his early MMA days. “I’ve seen him struck with knees and elbows and I’ve never seen him hurt. I’ve never seen him knocked down. To see that was stunning.”
Indeed, by the time Ricky Gonzalez waved his arms at 2:38, the “AJ” train was back at full speed.
“There is no man in the world who can beat him in the heavyweight division,” said a jubilant Eddie Hearn, whose Matchroom operation orchestrated Joshua’s rise from Olympic champ to professional star. “He ain’t getting beat. That was one of the most destructive KOs anyone’s ever seen. He went in there and destroyed Francis Ngannou. He’s a savage. He’s a beast.”
Hearn’s hyperbolic outburst came not far from where Fury, whose own date with Usyk was postponed from February to May by an eye injury, was standing.
And though the “Gypsy King” has rarely backed down from a verbal scrap, he was measured in his response and appeared genuinely impressed with Joshua’s win.
“He was absolutely fantastic tonight. That’s what I should have done to (Ngannou),” he said.
“But if he fights me, it’d be a different game.”
Hearn said it’d be the biggest fight in the history of the sport. And he’s not wrong.
The UK-based rivals have danced around and toward each other for years—before, during and since their simultaneous claims of heavyweight supremacy.
Joshua KO’d Charles Martin in April 2016 to win the IBF belt that Fury vacated after taking it from Wladimir Klitschko five months earlier, and he was a three-belt claimant when Fury returned from a long hiatus to draw with Deontay Wilder in the first round of their trilogy in December 2018.
Joshua lost and regained his titles across two bouts with Ruiz in 2019 and Fury beat Wilder to become WBC champ in early 2020. They reigned together until September 2021 and the first of Joshua’s two upset losses to Usyk. In fact, Joshua and Fury had agreed to two bouts earlier that year, but Fury was contractually forced into a third bout with Wilder—leaving Joshua to stay busy against Usyk.
