Francis Ngannou elicited laughter after getting knocked out by Anthony Joshua Friday in their heavyweight bout when a reporter asked if that was the hardest he’s been hit.

“In fact, I didn’t feel the punch,’’ Ngannou said at the post-fight press conference. “I think that’s what the knockout is about. I don’t feel any pain. That’s how I know I was knocked out.’’

READ MORE ;Francis Ngannou next fight after Anthony Joshua has already been announced

The powerful right hand from Joshua left Ngannou, the former UFC champion, flat on his back and unconscious in the boxing ring. He was given oxygen before getting back onto his feet, according to the DAZN broadcast.

Joshua knocked down Ngannou in the first round and again in the second round before finishing him off at 2:38 of the second round.

“He did what Tyson Fury couldn’t,’’ Ngannou said, referring to his pro debut in October when he knocked down Fury in a fight he lost in a controversial split decision. “It wasn’t my day and (Joshua) was just way better than me today.”

Ngannou, 37, said he needs to process what happened Friday before deciding what’s next. The fighter from Cameroon said he might take an MMA fight.

UPDATE ;Anthony Joshua names four potential next fight options including Deontay Wilder and former foe

“But you can be sure that I’m not done here,’’ he said of boxing. “Absolutely not. I’m not done.”

Ngannou is set to return to the MMA cage after fighting Joshua – but also wants to fight Tyson Fury for a second time

Francis Ngannou is set to return to the cage after he fights Anthony Joshua – and finally make his PFL debut.

Ngannou signed for the MMA promotion after leaving the UFC early last year, but has put his debut on hold while he pursued the biggest fights in boxing. He dropped and almost stopped Tyson Fury last October and will tonight take on Joshua back in Saudi Arabia.

READ MORE ;Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou results: Live updates, ring walk time, where to stream

Should he win, Ngannou will target the winner of Fury’s upcoming undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk on May 18. But Ngannou has also committed to returning to MMA and taking on Renan Ferreira in the PFL.

The Brazilian knocked out Ryan Bader inside 21 seconds last month to become heavyweight champion with Ngannou at cageside for the fight in Riyadh. Ferreira called out the Cameroonian in his post-fight interview. “I am the real champion out here, I am the record breaker and record setter,” he said. “Francis, where are you? Let’s do this. I’ve always been ready to fight against the very best in the world, it can be against Francis in the boxing ring or in the cage, wherever he wants to do it.

“I already am one of the greatest heavyweights of all-time, I’ve proved this inside of the SmartCage and I’m going to continue proving it.” Ngannou was seen leaving the Kingdom Arena whilst Ferreira was giving his post-fight interview, spoiling plans for a face-off between the future opponents.

Ngannou is confident he can pull off an upset against Joshua – but is in no doubt about what would happen in an MMA fight between the rivals. He said: “Sometimes it just makes me laugh a little bit, because we are going to fight in boxing rules, but what would happen if it was a ‘free’ fight under MMA rules? I would smoke this guy. I am the only one to go in their backyard, none of them can come in my backyard. I would take two of them at once.

UPDATE ;LIVE: Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou – Heavyweight Boxing

“I have learnt a little bit from the last fight, the last camp, and leading up to this one, so I get a little bit of experience, but the mindset is still the same. This is just my second boxing match, even though I am taking on the two best guys in the world in boxing. I am the underdog, I am going out there to prove that you can be an underdog and stand your ground.”

Anthony Joshua steamrolled Francis Ngannou in two rounds, annihilating the Cameroonian hero with a booming right hand that left the MMA icon flat on his back.

Ngannou was down three times in all, each time from right hands, before he was ultimately blasted out by that shot and separated from his senses.

It was all over after 2:38 of the second round.

Asked if that was what he wanted next, Joshua responded: “Yes it is.”

READ MORE ;Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou results: Live updates, ring walk time, where to stream

The fighters set up as you might have expected to begin with. Joshua, 28-2 (25 KOs), looked conventional and fluid; Ngannou, with his wide-armed defense, stepped into the fray. Joshua was caught circling to his left early on and he caught a heavy right hand on his glove with his left hand high.

Ngannou, an MMA great but now 0-2 as a professional boxer, changed southpaw early on, as he had done against Fury last October, but Joshua saw it as an open invitation and threw a long right hand through the middle – down the pipe – and Ngannou was on his back and listening to the referee Ricky Gonzalez’s count for the first time.

Ngannou looked shocked. Joshua was measured and composed. He threw to the body and then landed another right over the top as he pressed his advantage and with Joshua dictating terms in the second Ngannou was over once more from another right hand with a minute to go.

Then, as the two met back in the center of the ring, Joshua launched forward with a huge overhand right and a dazed Ngannou seemed to be out on impact.

Ngannou’s right leg buckled beneath him, laced with equal measures of drama and brutality, and Ngannou was stretched out flat on his back as the referee waved it off.

RELATED ;Anthony Joshua v Francis Ngannou: 10-round heavyweight boxing match – live

Joshua has knocked out a few in dramatic fashion, and that was a crushing shot to add to the highlight reel.

Ngannou was given oxygen and remained on the canvas for some time as the ring started to fill with people, and then the Cameroonian was tended to while he sat on his stool and recovered.

Ngannou, 37, who decked Tyson Fury on his way to a narrow decision loss last October in his professional boxing debut, listened, but you cannot be sure he was able to retain anything that was being said to him such was the devastation he had just encountered.

“He can come again,” Joshua said. “I told him he shouldn’t leave boxing. He can do well. He’s fought two of the best and he can go a long way if he stays dedicated. It’s up to him.”

UPDATE ;Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou live updates: Fight card results, ring walk times, predictions and more

Joshua has won four in a row since back-to-back defeats by Usyk, having overcome Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and now Ngannou.

The 34-year-old heavyweight from Watford paid tribute to his coach Ben Davison, and the support team he has around him.

Anthony Joshua faces Francis Ngannou knowing a statement victory could open up one of the most exciting periods in his career as he targets becoming a three-time world heavyweight champion; watch Joshua face Ngannou live on Sky Sports Box Office on Friday March 8.

Anthony Joshua keeps coming. Again and again. His global allure undeterred by setbacks, his will to hit back more than a match for his sceptics and his power – when unleashed – still one of the scintillating flashpoints in the modern fight game.

Whether relaunch or retaliation, his renewed pursuit of boxing’s pinnacle resumes in less orthodox circumstances on Friday when he pits his knockout exploits against that of former UFC star Francis Ngannou. A stoppage victory beckons as the latest statement on his targeted route back to heavyweight glory, while threatening a sharp jab to the Tyson Fury tale in light of the Gypsy King’s uncomfortable encounter with Ngannou late last year.

Ngannou wanted the biggest and the best were he to sacrifice UFC supremacy for his childhood dreams of stepping inside the ring. So he came to Fury and now he comes to Joshua, the latter of whom’s influence as a beacon of his era has helped sell yet more historic crossover combat in Saudi Arabia’s heavyweight playground.

The career of Ngannou has unfolded minus the burden of expectation such is his underdog background, while in contrast there may be no British fighter of the last decade that has shouldered as much pressure to succeed as Joshua during his gold-medal-springboarded rise to fame.

Heavyweight boxing’s proclivity for fluctuation can be everybody’s favourite selling point until said fluctuation arrives. Joshua has conquered and been conquered, he has dictated, defended and, in turn, been dethroned; welcome to heavyweight boxing. The blemishes are fewer than some might wish you to believe, and the potential opportunities ahead more exciting than some might allow you to envision.

Write-off narratives have been tentatively nudged towards Joshua, and clobbered into the distance for good measure. He knows world titles are still within reach, he knows a British heavyweight showdown for the ages is still there to be made, he knows his luring power as a face for the sport remains intact, he knows in himself there are still knockouts to be recorded and headlines with which to bolster his legacy, both in and out of the ring.

Olympic glory had teed up the story for British boxing’s next gold-encrusted poster boy when he officially stepped up from the amateur ranks in 2013, three knockout wins each inside two rounds doing well to set the tone for what was to follow. He would waste no time in burning the ground between himself and domestic rivals with seven knockout victories to announce himself in 2014, three of which he ended in the first round and none of which surpassed three.

Unfiltered, uncontainable ferocity was ripping through the heavyweight scene, and the unadulterated confidence of a soon-to-be-champion rapidly building.

Within his 2014 run had come a second-round stoppage win over Denis Bakhtov to claim the vacant WBC international heavyweight title, which Joshua went on to retain towards the start of the next year with a breezy second-round knockout victory over the, albeit older, Kevin Johnson who had previously gone the distance with Fury.

READ MORE ;Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou: AJ says former UFC champion is not a gimmick opponent and believes he beat Tyson Fury

Between 2014 and the opening months of 2015, the extent of his lasting impression had chiselled the odds on his world champion prospects. It came as a defining explosion in a moment when boxing needed another heavyweight protagonist to prop up its landscape over the coming years. His reach was extending beyond boxing’s purists and touching a mainstream market with an ease to which only sporting superstars could attest; a decade on, as much is being amplified as Ngannou and Saudi Arabia draw on his appeal to boost their profile further through Friday’s lucrative main event.

A lasting impression in 2014 became the trigger for lasting memories, and lasting images of Joshua, of which people will have their own.

December 12, 2015: the lasting image for some might have been Joshua spinning his aloft wrist to play to the crowd in pre-celebratory mode as he hunted down a wobbling Dillian Whyte on the ropes before finishing his foe in the seventh round of their London grudge match. Spite had met slick showmanship to officially raise the curtain on his era of contention.

Then came the wry smile of an epiphanic Charles Martin – the Brit’s gateway to world titles – as he was sat down by a vicious right hand from Joshua, who slouched in his corner and shrugged his shoulders as if in wait of the real challenge while becoming IBF champion with a second-round stoppage victory in April 2016. And then a year later the crashing, head-snapping 11th-round uppercut that would kickstart his decisive flurry and ultimately spell the end of Wladimir Klitschko’s storied career as Joshua overcame a knockdown to stop the Ukrainian icon and confirm his place among the elite.

There was the exercise in patience over 12 rounds against Joseph Parker to become unified champion in March 2018, and a return to knockout destruction against Alexander Povetkin to dispatch a mandatory later in the year. There was the day the world stood still in June 2019 as a little-known Andy Ruiz Jr produced one of the great upsets in history to stun Joshua on his US debut, and the day Joshua secured redemption by out-classing his counterpart to snatch back his world titles with a unanimous decision response in Saudi later in the year. On he went.

There was the ill-effective game-plan that failed to solve one of boxing’s most complex, perhaps-unsolvable (tbc), equations in Oleksandr Usyk as Joshua relinquished his belts to the Ukrainian maestro in September 2021. And then the vastly-improved yet still unrewarded follow-up performance in the pair’s rollercoaster rematch, which had teased glimmers of Joshua dynamite in a thrilling ninth round before unloading the heartache of defeat when he tossed Usyk’s belts out of the ring during a post-fight outburst for which he would later apologise.

Lasting images of both ecstasy and adversity tell the tale of a true heavyweight journey, along which Joshua has both been hailed for his finishing prowess and asked to temper his bombs-away aggression, across which he has both been encouraged to try and out-box the ultimate technician in Usyk and questioned for straying from his natural fight instincts.

The scrutiny has been fierce under an unwavering spotlight, where glory as a two-time world champion has been accompanied by a shock only heavyweight boxing could conjure, coaching mistakes and a collision with a master in Usyk. Within that, he has never turned down a challenge. And here he comes again, as he always does.

Francis Ngannou’s trainer Dewey Cooper has tipped his fighter to claim victory over Anthony Joshua on Friday night and go on to become the heavyweight champion of the world. The former UFC champion nearly clinched a shock win over Tyson Fury on his professional boxing debut and takes on Joshua next, with the winner likely to be among the contenders for the next title shot.

Next up for the Cameroonian is a showdown with Joshua, who is coming off the back of three successive victories as he plots a route back to the title.

But Cooper is confident Ngannou is going to thwart the Brit’s hopes and once again defy the odds.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Cooper said: “Can he go one better? Absolutely. That’s the goal and that’s the plan.

“In the Tyson Fury fight, we told you guys he was going to at least drop him once, that he could win the fight. We mean our words; this is not poetry, not fantasy.

“I know Joshua is your guy, you’re supposed to support him, but just know what he’s up against. He is up against a man who has proven life wrong from childhood all the way up.”

In the UFC, Ngannou was renowned for his devastating power, earning knockout victories in 10 of his 12 wins in the promotion.

It seemed to translate immediately when he swapped the octagon for the boxing ring as he sent Fury to the canvas, but Cooper says it’s not the only weapon in his arsenal.

“He has gargantuan power. It’s natural, in both fists. If he lands clean, bad things are going to happen for Joshua,” Cooper added.

“His precision is on point, his mentality is on point. It’s going to be one heck of a fight.

“We’re going to gain more from that first outing than anyone’s expectations could be. He’s going to be a much better, much more improved fighter than in his first outing against Tyson Fury.

“He can win it in a multitude of ways. Impossible when it comes to Francis Ngannou simply means ‘unpossible’.

“Beware and be worried if you’re a Joshua fan.”

Such is the confidence of the Ngannou team, they are already targeting the winner of the unification bout between Fury and Oleksandr Usyk on May 18, live on TNT Sports Box Office.

“He wins [Friday], the goal will be to become unified world boxing champion – and that will be a great thing,” Cooper continued.

“An ex-UFC world champion to unified boxing world champion in three fights… scary!

READ MORE ;Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou: AJ says former UFC champion is not a gimmick opponent and believes he beat Tyson Fury

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