Anthony Joshua succeeded where Tyson Fury failed and blasted out Francis Ngannou while his rival watched from ringside.
Fury was dropped by the former UFC champion last year before earning a sluggish points win, but Joshua made no such mistake, dropping the Cameroonian three times en-route to a bludgeoning second-round victory.
The former two-time world champion is now in pole position to fight the winner of Fury’s undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua has now secured knockout wins over two fighters who took Tyson Fury the distance in Wallin and Ngannou.
Ngannou shocked fans when he knocked Fury down in their bout last year and because of that performance, fans believed he could pull a shocker against Joshua too.
“Francis can come again. He is two fights in and he’s fought the best. He can go a long way. “I’m going to go to my cage and I’ll be let out when it’s time to fight.” Asked if that means the winner of Fury vs Usyk, Joshua said: “Yes it does”.
Joshua won three fights in nine months last year as he recovered from his devastating back-to-back defeats by Usyk.
He was fighting in the Middle East for the fourth time – while Ngannou walked to the ring for just his second professional boxing match.
The first bell rang shortly before 3am in Riyadh and Ngannou immediately looked to land the left hook he had identified as Joshua’s Kryptonite. But Joshua had been waiting to pounce and dropped Ngannou with a right hand flush on the chin.
Ngannou beat the count and managed to see out the final seconds of the round but had to cling on at the start of the second round when Joshua landed another backhana.
And the Brit found his mark again with less than a minute remaining as Ngannou hit the canvas.
Joshua, however, silenced the doubters, outboxing Ngannou throughout the two rounds and he made a statement like he promised with a knockout win inside just five minutes of their fight.
Again he rose, but he was soon flattened again and this time the referee had no choice but to wave off the bout.
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