Anthony Joshua returns to the ring on Saturday against the relatively unknown Kristian Prenga in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, knowing that victory would set up a long-awaited showdown with Tyson Fury.
Joshua, a two-time world champion and Olympic gold medallist, has won 29 fights – 26 by stoppage – and lost four.
Albanian Prenga enters the fight with an impressive record of his own, having achieved all of his 20 victories with stoppages while suffering only one defeat.
However, the 35-year-old has never faced anyone close to Joshua’s level.
After Fury comfortably dispatched Polish veteran Mariusz Wach in Thailand on Friday, can Joshua can come through his own warm-up bout?
This will be Joshua’s first fight since he was involved in a car crash in Nigeria that claimed the lives of two close friends, Sina Ghami and Latif ‘Latz’ Ayodele.
The Fury-Joshua fight has been a decade in the making. Contracts have been signed, with the blockbuster bout expected to take place later this year.
But could Prenga spoil the party and pull off a huge shock to go down in boxing history as the man who got in the way of Joshua-Fury happening?
Radio commentary from Jeddah will begin from about 20:30 BST on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Sounds, and the BBC Sport website and app.
Live text commentary will begin at 19:30 on the BBC Sport website and app.
BBC Sport spoke to figures from the boxing world to get their predictions for Saturday’s fight.
Source:
www.bbc.co.uk
