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7 hours ago
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The bedlam and madness lasted for just five minutes and 43 seconds and, after Anthony Joshua was back in the sanctuary of his dressing room, he claimed to have learned “a valuable lesson”. Joshua had been knocked down twice by Kristian Prenga before he rescued himself in the second round with a brutal stoppage of the previously obscure Albanian.
Joshua also looked ahead to the hugely anticipated fight with Tyson Fury after the two faded former world champions came through wildly contrasting bouts which were meant to be routine exhibitions this weekend. “I’m gonna come back stronger now,” Joshua claimed as he tried to clear the concussive fog from his brain after the worst round of his tumultuous career.
But the sad truth had already risen up with piercing clarity after just 20 seconds of that first round. A sweeping right hand, which was the first meaningful punch of the fight, rocked Joshua and set him up for Prenga’s jolting uppercut. They were decent blows but it was disturbing to see how little punch resistance Joshua retains. He still cuts a sculpted figure of hard muscle but he looked lost and scrambled as he tumbled to the canvas. Joshua managed to roll over and, pressing his white gloves down on the blue canvas, he pushed himself up.
His legs were rickety as a grimace of a smile crossed his confused face. After he took a count of eight, Joshua was soon in trouble again. A sharp right cross sent him reeling into the ropes and the referee could have given him another count. Every time Prenga landed the right hand, even without undue force, Joshua was vulnerable.
Another uppercut sent him down again, even if this time his gloves only brushed the canvas before he was up again. Joshua’s courage was obvious but, in those desolate moments, the idea that he would survive another onslaught and face Fury in November seemed beyond fanciful.
But then, inexplicably, everything changed. During the break between rounds it was almost as if a loaded message had been given to Prenga that he should pack away his artillery and stop ruining the $200m (£150m) showdown between Fury and Joshua. In reality it seemed more a case that Prenga had shocked himself by dragging Joshua to the brink of a shattering defeat.
Rather than coming out to close the show, Prenga backed away. He allowed his dazed victim to seize control and start unloading punches. The Albanian was pinned in a corner and, throwing nothing of consequence in return, he was suddenly under immense pressure. Successive combinations made him sag before a ferocious right hand poleaxed Prenga.
Joshua deserves praise for his fortitude and finishing power. But even that clinical knockout could not wipe away the images of him weaving like a battered old tree about to crash to the ground whenever he was tagged by blows he would have once shrugged aside.
Having been injured seven months ago in the car accident which killed Sina Ghami and Latif “Latz” Ayodele, his close friends and key members of his camp, Joshua paid tribute to them: “It’s more than punch power. That was spirit. That was Latz, that was Sina, that was their families. It hurts to even talk about it. It has been tough. It’s my brothers.”
Joshua was close to tears. His distress was understandable but it was more worrying when he suggested that personal tragedy had given him higher powers of recovery. “You know what I learned? I can’t be stopped, man – I can’t be denied.”
His family, friends and promoters should all pause and, in the coming days, take great care of him. It would be best if they advised Joshua he is no longer equipped to absorb heavy punishment from even a merely competent heavyweight. Younger fighters such as Moses Itauma and Daniel Dubois, who administered a crushing knockout of Joshua in 2024, would have hurt him badly had they, rather than Prenga, been in the ring.
It’s true Fury was uninspiring when beating Mariusz Wach, a mediocre 46-year-old Polish heavyweight, after seven one-sided rounds in Thailand on Friday night.
Wach still managed to tag Fury a couple of times as the old Gypsy King is no longer an elusive ring technician. But Fury remains a fighter to his core and he could cause serious damage against such a reduced version of Joshua.
“We’ve signed the contract,” Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, said after his fighter’s lucky escape. “Everything is done. But tonight wasn’t about Tyson Fury. It was about the strength Anthony Joshua has shown to be here. No one knows what he’s been through the last seven months. When he went down in the first round, I thought he’d come back too soon.”
Yet, as Hearn conceded later, the signed contracts stipulate that Fury and Joshua will fight in the UK in November. It is now widely expected that the contest will take place in the US instead and so a new set of contracts could delay the circus yet again.
Reflecting on his near nightmare against Prenga, Joshua added: “It was a tough moment but I learned a valuable lesson. Start faster. Come out, fuck this boxing, and be ready. You can do it in 20 seconds. If Prenga had a bit more luck on his side, he could have had me out of there.”
He also suggested that “today was a real good eye-opener.” It was, in the sense that his lack of punch resistance was stripped bare for all to see. In a business more sensible and compassionate than boxing, those close to Joshua would try to persuade him that the time has come for him to walk away with his riches and senses still intact.
Instead, he will be enticed back into the ring to fight Fury – in a contest between two old heavyweights which now seems freighted as much with danger and potential calamity as colossal amounts of money.
