Francis Ngannou says Anthony Joshua wouldn't get up from same punch as Tyson Fury - 'I have a doubt about that'

Francis Ngannou has suggested that Anthony Joshua would not be able to recover from a similar punch he landed to floor Tyson Fury in their upcoming heavyweight clash in Saudi Arabia.

The former UFC champion will be competing in his second boxing match after narrowly losing to WBC title-holder Fury in a split decision after 10 rounds last October.

Ngannou stunned the boxing world by knocking Fury to the canvas in the third round with a brutal left hook in an all-round impressive display.

The performance earned him a fight against Joshua, and ahead of the March 8 showdown at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, the Cameroonian was confident a similar blow to Joshua would see him claim a shock win.

"Yeah, I have a doubt about that," when asked on DAZN if the Brit could take the same punch. "Tyson showed that he's very resilient. I saw him come back from knockdowns like you wouldn't believe.

“So I think he's probably one of the most resistant people out there, and that's not a disrespect to AJ.

"I don't believe that AJ would take what Tyson did."

He added: "Even going into the fight, I knew that even if I knocked him down, I would not get excited.

"That would not mean anything because he always comes back."

Sitting opposite Ngannou during the head-to-head, Joshua insisted that Ngannou’s knockdown may not have been that much of a surprise.

"Who hasn't knocked Tyson down?” he hit back. “So many people have knocked Tyson down.”

Joshua did insist he wouldn’t take Ngannou lightly, however, and was impressed with what he saw from the mixed martial artist on his professional boxing debut.

“No, not at all,” he responded when asked if he was surprised with his opponent’s display. “I researched Ngannou and I’ve watched Tyson Fury box a number of times.

“People claim he’s the greatest of many, many generations, but I think if I box Tyson Fury, a lot of similarities will happen in the fight.

“So I’m not surprised at all, in terms of his style, who Fury is. It’s just a boxing match. Well done to both of them, they put on an entertaining fight. But that’s in the past now.”

Despite the crossover nature of the fight, Joshua still has his eyes on the biggest prizes in boxing following his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk for the WBO, WBA, IBF and IBF titles in 2021 and his failure to recapture the belts in the rematch.

With 24 knockouts from his 27 career wins to date, Joshua will come up against another fighter who has a good record when it comes to ending his fights early.

Of Ngannou’s 17 UFC wins, 12 have come by knockout and he believes both he and Joshua will be aiming for a similar outcome.

“We are both going to look for a knockout, which I don’t think is a problem because I will try to knock him out if I have the opportunity and I think he will do the same thing.”

Ngannou suggested his experiences in mixed martial arts and a defeat to Stipe Miocic in 2018 will impact how he approaches his showdown with Joshua.

“I will not go for ‘let’s go knock him out’ because knockout is natural," he said.

“The only time in my career I went for a knockout, it didn’t go well for me. It went really bad.

“I walked into that fight like ‘OK, let’s go knock this guy out’ and it ended up in a very bad way for me.

“After that I’m like ‘OK. I’m just going back to who I am. Fight, and then it happens’. Then I was knocking people out in 20 seconds, 45 seconds without looking for knockouts.”

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