Anthony Joshua was floored by an uppercut inside 30 seconds of the opening round against Kristian Prenga, according to Al Jazeera. He beat the count but appeared seriously shaken. Prenga then knocked Joshua down again, though the former heavyweight champion rose before the end of the count and survived until the bell in the first round.

A Comeback That Stunned Heavyweight King Usyk

Many expected a quick end to the fight, but not in favor of Prenga. In the second round, Joshua unleashed a flurry of punches and finished Prenga with a right hook, sending the Albanian through the bottom of the ropes, according to Bad Left Hook. The turnaround stunned even heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk, whose face was captured by TV cameras as he watched from ringside.

The comeback kept alive the possibility of an all-British fight between Joshua and Fury. Joshua’s manager Eddie Hearn claims his fighter and Fury have signed a contract to meet for the first time later this year, but on the condition that they come through warm-up bouts this weekend. “I hope the fans will be in for a lovely treat,” Joshua told the crowd about fighting Fury following his win over Prenga.

Fury’s Role in the Road to the Showdown

Fury played his part by coming out of retirement this year and, on Friday, forcing 46-year-old Polish journeyman Mariusz Wach to retire in round seven in Pattaya, Thailand. Joshua almost blew his part of the claimed contract before showcasing his champion’s fightback spirit. Prenga brought a 20-1 fight record with 20 KOs into the match-up with Joshua and looked every bit the knockout artist.

Joshua, fighting for the first time since surviving the car crash that killed his friends Sina Ghami and Latif ‘Latz’ Ayodele, acknowledged them straight after improving his fight record to 30-4 (27 KOs). “It’s more than punch power,” Joshua said of his knockout punch. “That was spirit. That was Latz and Sina. That was the family. You know what I mean?”

A Wild Ride to a Long-Awaited Showdown

Joshua (30-4, 27 KO) is now clear to pursue his long-awaited fight against Tyson Fury, who had his own tune-up on Friday in Thailand, stopping 46-year-old Mariusz Wach, according to Bad Left Hook. There are clearer and louder questions than ever about Joshua’s viability as a top-level fighter. He looked every day of his 36 years in this fight, and like a fighter whose glory days are pretty well behind him. Prenga, who was nowhere near considered a real contender, was the first actual professional boxer Joshua had beaten since 2023.

The fight with Fury looks pretty much set, even if there still isn’t a date or location announced. “You’ve got to have that fire, but also there’s respect. I respect everything he’s done and everything he’s achieved, but as a fighting person and someone who has been calling for this fight a long time, we’re here now,” Joshua said. Joshua called Prenga a ‘strong fighter’ and said he has a ‘bright future’ and gave him ‘a good test.’ “That’s what champions do,” he said. “We rise, man! We get knocked down, we stand up, and we get going. That’s life.”

The 37-year-old Fury (36-2-1, 25 KO) did not appear in the ring after the fight. He had repeatedly said he would not make the flight from Thailand to Saudi Arabia for the fight, but enough people kept the question open that the intrigue was there. Fury, though, didn’t say it just to build anticipation; he really wasn’t there.

It was anything but easy and it looked like Joshua-Fury might go down the drain when little-known and untested Kristian Prenga shockingly dropped Joshua twice in the first round and was seemingly one punch away from knocking him out, according to Dan Rafael. The long-awaited heavyweight showdown between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, about a decade in the making, is on tap next, but what a wild roller coaster ride it was for Joshua to get over the final hurdle. But Joshua survived and rallied to score a highlight-reel knockout in the second round for a dramatic victory that saved the mega fight in the headliner of a DAZN PPV card dubbed ‘The Comeback’ on Saturday at the Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.