Joshua Beats Prenga But Two Knockdowns Have Froch Calling Time

Anthony Joshua got the result everyone expected against Kristian Prenga last Saturday, stopping him and pushing his record to 29-4 (26 KO). Nobody's talking about the finish, though. They're talking about the two knockdowns he took inside the first round — the first from a right uppercut roughly 20 seconds after the opening bell.

For a fight built as a low-risk warm-up, that's a problem. It was Joshua's first outing since a sixth-round stoppage of Jake Paul in December, and his first since a car crash in Nigeria that killed two close friends. The 36-year-old was widely tipped to blow through Prenga inside two rounds. He did — but only after climbing off the canvas twice.

Froch Doesn't Mince Words

Carl Froch watched all of it and reached a blunt conclusion on his YouTube channel: Joshua is 'shot to bits' and shouldn't be near a ring. His argument isn't about heart or conditioning — he acknowledged AJ came in fit and fully prepared. It's about the chin. Once punch resistance goes, Froch said, it's over, pointing to Amir Khan and other faded names as the cautionary tale.

That's the uncomfortable read. Joshua came out unsure of himself, got tagged early, and spent the opening three minutes recovering from shots a prime version of him would have shrugged off. For a former unified champion with 26 knockouts on his ledger, getting dropped by an opponent like Prenga is the kind of data point you can't spin.

The one caveat Froch offered is that the man waiting for Joshua looked rough too. Tyson Fury went seven rounds with a 46-year-old Mariusz Wach in Thailand the day before, winning by retirement but looking like a shadow of himself. Fury sits at 36-2-1 (25 KO) and is ranked #3 at heavyweight — so the eventual showdown may come down to which faded version shows up.

And that showdown still looks like it's happening. Despite Froch calling for the gloves to be hung up, the long-teased Joshua–Fury fight appears to be edging closer. Two aging heavyweights, both coming off performances that raised more questions than they answered. On paper it's the biggest all-British fight of the era. On the evidence of last weekend, it's two men racing to get there before the tank runs dry.