Two-time heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua recovered from a disastrous first round to stop Albanian Kristian Prenga in the second at the Jeddah Superdome on Saturday evening, ticking what should be one of the final boxes before the all-British showdown with Tyson Fury can be finalised.
Joshua was knocked down twice in the first round and looked unsteady on his feet after the first knockdown some 30 seconds into the fight. He was held up by the ropes later on in the round, avoiding what looked as though it would have been a third knockdown.
But the second round started with Joshua looking more composed and Prenga choosing not to press the advantage he had built in the first round. The Brit landed a solid one-two early and from there Prenga never re-found his feet, allowing Joshua to land a huge right hand that sent Prenga to the canvas and brought an early end to a bizarre see-saw fight.
This bout in Saudi Arabia was designed to set up a long-awaited showdown with Fury, who comfortably defeated Polish opponent Mariusz Wach after seven rounds in Thailand on Friday in his own warm-up.
A Fury-Joshua fight has been a decade in the making. Contracts have been signed with the blockbuster bout expected to take place later this year, although it remains unclear if that would take place in the UK or the U.S.
Prenga was billed as something of a knockout artist having won all 20 of his victories by stoppage, but entered this bout as a relative unknown. The 35-year-old was riding a 14-fight win streak since suffering his lone career defeat at the hands of Giovanni Auriemma in 2017.
The Albanian had not, however, previously faced an opponent of Joshua’s calibre or performed on this stage and he was always going to be a massive underdog.
This was Joshua’s first fight since he was involved in a car crash in Nigeria that claimed the lives of two close friends, Sina Ghami and Latif ‘Latz’ Ayodele in December 2025.
