Former two-time unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua 27-3 (24) will finish the fight on his back when he takes on boxing novice Francis Ngannou 0-1 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Friday night.
That’s the view of Shaun George, trainer of top contender Zhilei Zhang 26-1-1 (21) who will take on Joseph Parker 34-3 (23) on the undercard.
Britain’s Joshua, 34, will enter the fight against former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou as a firm favourite after a 10 year pro career that has seen him twice claim the WBA, WBO and IBF championships.
But 37-year-old Cameroonian Ngannou proved his mettle in his lone professional boxing bout to date when he took WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury 34-0-1 (24) the distance in their 10-round non-title fight in October.
In that fight Ngannou scored a knockdown in the third round courtesy of a big left hook and went within a whisker of winning that bout, losing a split decision by scores of 95-94, 93-96 and 94-95.
For George, there is enough to like about Ngannou to suggest he can go one better against Joshua.
“Joshua gets stopped,” George told DAZN. “That’s my opinion. I’m the one to say it – Anthony Joshua gets stopped in this fight.
“Joshua is the better boxer – he should win the fight. I understand why everybody in the boxing world is picking Joshua [to win] and he’s doing it for the sport of boxing.
“But looking at Francis Ngannou – people is not looking at that he’s actually been in the boxing gym for five years, with [his trainer] Dewey Cooper. Training twice a week; three times a week; even in the gym sparring with other boxers.
“You gotta take into consideration that the rhythm [of mixed martial artists] is different. I see it in the gym all the time – MMA fighters go against boxers; their rhythm is different; they fight at a different pace. I’m not sure Anthony Joshua can make that adjustment.”
Ngannou is expecting the best version of Joshua in the ring – he just expects to be better.
“Things can happen in the fight, but you don’t go into a fight expecting a guy to lose confidence,” Ngannou said.
“When he’s an elite fighter, when he’s a professional, maybe from that lack of confidence, he has learned more and now has more confidence, because he gets experience from that, we all learn from our experience.”
Despite ultimately losing to Fury, Ngannou said he learnt a lot from the experience.
“In my honest opinion, the Tyson Fury fight was different,” he said.
“He was the first one, there was a lot of noise, Fury is very loud, there was a lot of curiosity. The boxing community was very loud about it and a lot of people didn’t believe [in] it, but now it seems like, ‘okay, it’s a normal fight’.”
