Anthony Joshua knocked Francis Ngannou out cold on Friday to position himself for a shot at the undisputed heavyweight title and the winner of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua dropped ex-UFC champion Ngannou in round one with a clean right hand, before doing the same in round two. After Ngannou beat the referee’s count following the second knockdown, Joshua knocked the Cameroonian out cold with his very next punch – another right cross.
With the win, “AJ” made it back-to-back wins under Ben Davison, a former coach of Fury. Under Davison, 34-year-old Joshua stopped Otto Wallin in five rounds in December.
Billed as ‘Knockout Chaos’, Friday’s fight night was the latest event put on by Turki Al-Sheikh in Saudi Arabia.
Attention now turns to the undisputed fight between Fury, the WBC champion, and Usyk, holder of the WBA (Super), IBF and WBO belts, when they collide on 18 May.