Anthony Joshua Comes Back From The Brink To Knock Out Kristian Prenga

It was supposed to be a simple warm up for AJ to get ready for the Battle of Britain with Tyson Fury later this year. The fight with Kristian Prenga in Jeddah was viewed as a straight forward warm-up bout for the Londoner but it proved anything but.

AJ looked well beaten in the 1st round

As you can see in the highlights of the bout in Saudi Arabia Anthony Joshua got all he could handle from the game Albanian Prenga in the first round as the inexperienced man almost put the former World Champion away.

The 35 year old Prenga, who arrived with 20 knockouts from his 20 victories had only lost once before.

Highlights of Anthony Joshua's epic comeback victory against Kristian Prenga in Jeddah 😤#JoshuaPrenga | Exclusively on DAZN 🥊 pic.twitter.com/T6bq3x0tUF

— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) July 25, 2026

AJ recovered somehow and put Prenga away in round 2

Watch the knockout as Joshua got his legs back and put away the novice fighter who gave him quite the scare after he waltzed though his last fight knocking out Jake Paul.

The moment Anthony Joshua knocked out Kristian Prenga! 😳#JoshuaPrenga ▪️ pic.twitter.com/ozAV5r3wJI

— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) July 25, 2026

Whether this performance has done enough to suggest the fight with Tyson Fury will be a classic is debatable but at least Anthony Joshua came through it. We had looked at Anthony Joshua’s best 5 wins ahead of the Prenga fight and he will need to return to that kind of form if he wants to beat Fury.

How did Tyson Fury get on in his warm up fight?

Tyson Fury was not in attendance to watch Anthony Joshua’s serious scare in Jeddah only 24 hours on from his own warm-up win over Mariusz Wach in Thailand.

The fight was not particularly impressive either but Fury did win comfortably as the 46 year old Polish fighter Wach was pulled out at the end of the 7th round according to Sky Sports. The bout was not televised.