Anthony Joshua’s second round knockout of Kristian Prenga on Saturday in Jeddah cleared the last obstacle to a fight with Tyson Fury, and it did so in a way nobody scripted. Joshua was dropped twice in the opening round before finishing Prenga at 2:43 of the second. Fury had stopped Mariusz Wach in Pattaya, Thailand the night before. Here is what the principals and the ringside observers have said so far, with fuller transcripts still emerging.

Fury spoke first, roughly 24 hours before Joshua fought. Asked about his rival, he framed the weekend as parallel examinations. “I got through my test. Let’s see if [Joshua] gets through his test. The biggest test of it all is how big his balls are. I think he’s a big s***house,” Fury said, per Sky Sports. “In Tottenham in front of 70,000 people, he never had the guts to get in the ring and face me. Let’s see if he ever does. I’m not convinced.”

The reference is to April 11, when Fury beat Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and called Joshua out from the ring. Joshua, seated ringside, declined to climb through the ropes, saying at the time that no deal had been signed.

On what comes next, Fury offered no fixed answer on venue. “I’ll regroup. Hopefully the next big fight is signed next week, and we head wherever we’re going to head,” he said.

He also shut down speculation that he would fly from Thailand to Saudi Arabia to face off with Joshua after the Prenga fight. “I’ll go and face off with my wife,” Fury said, per reporting carried by AOL. “I’ve been away the last six or seven months. I’m definitely not going to Jeddah. I’m going home to my wife and kids who have been supporting me from a distance. I’ve been away in training camp for 10 weeks. I was away before that for four months, so I’m going to go home and have a rest.”

Joshua learned of that decision in the ring in Jeddah after calling for a face-off, per Bloody Elbow. He was blunt on the subject of his rival, then softened it. “I am going to rip his heart out. I am the meanest and most vicious champion there has ever been,” Joshua said, per Sky Sports. “All jokes aside, I respect everything he has done and achieved but we are here now. I hope the fans will be in for a lovely treat.”

On the two knockdowns, Joshua did not dress up what happened. “I can’t be stopped, I’m not gonna be stopped, I’m not gonna be denied… You saw someone knocked down for a bit, but I got back up, and that’s what life is about. Let’s keep striving, let’s keep pushing,” he said, per NESN.

Oleksandr Usyk, who beat Joshua twice and whose team now trains him, watched from ringside and embraced him after the stoppage.

Eddie Hearn had spent Friday night arguing that Fury has slipped. Speaking to iFL TV after watching Fury stop the 46 year old Wach, Joshua’s promoter was unimpressed. “I think he’s shot,” Hearn said. “Shot is probably a little bit harsh, but shot compared to what he once was. That’s what I think.”

He was specific about what he had watched. “I’m watching the [Arslanbek] Makhmudov fight. I’m watching this. The timing, the speed of foot, I just don’t think he’s got it anymore,” Hearn said.

Hearn also applied the same standard to his own fighter, before Joshua had stepped on the canvas twice in Jeddah. “AJ got stopped by Daniel Dubois, came back, fought Jake Paul. That’s it. Who’s to say AJ’s the same fighter that he once was?” Hearn said. “I believe he is, but you’ve still got to show it.”

And he stopped short of writing Fury off. “I think Fury will always raise his game against the opposition,” Hearn said. “He’s done it so many times in his career, proved me wrong half a dozen times in fights that I thought he’d lose, but I just don’t believe if AJ can look how I hope he looks tomorrow night, he will go into this fight as a massive favorite.”

Joshua did not look how Hearn hoped, at least not for three minutes. Tony Bellew, working ringside, called the opening round what it was. “We predicted round two but I don’t think we foresaw that. That was chaos. He doesn’t see the uppercut coming and finds himself on the floor without knowing how he got there,” Bellew said, per Boxing News.

Bellew’s read on the recovery pushed back on the standard criticism of Joshua. “He showed once again there is no quit. To be that hurt in the first round and get up, that’s the recoveries of power. People talk about your chin, but it’s not, it’s the level of fitness that gets you up from the floor,” he said. “When Joshua gets a fighter hurt he’s the best finisher in the division. Whenever he hurts someone they’re gone. I haven’t seen him drop anybody and they survive, only Andy Ruiz. He’s a ruthless finisher.”

The chin question had been raised most directly by Prenga himself in the build up, and the first round gave the claim a longer life than it might otherwise have had. “For me, not what I think but what I see with my eyes, the chin is no chin because we see in the ring he went down many times,” Prenga told Betway, per BoxingScene. “And mentally I think it’s not the same as before, but it’s normal because he [Joshua] had an accident and he lost to [Daniel] Dubois, and I think it’s not gonna be the same for him.”

Prenga had also warned Joshua against looking past him. “AJ is a gentleman, he has respect for everybody, but I told him before too, it’s not good to make a plan before God,” he said. “His team, his management, or him, I don’t know, he made a plan before God to fight Tyson Fury, but first he needs to fight me. And it’s not good to make a plan before God because only God can make a plan for you, for me, for everybody.” He was right for one round.

Turki Alalshikh has not commented publicly since the Jeddah card ended. Days before the weekend, the General Entertainment Authority chairman had said the news worth waiting for would come once both men had fought. “Let’s see Joshua fight, Fury fight. It is this week. And after that we have a big announcement,” He gave no detail on what the announcement would cover.

Contracts for Fury vs. Joshua were reported as signed in April for the fourth quarter of 2026, with Netflix expected as the broadcast partner. The open questions are date and venue. Wembley Stadium had been the leading candidate, complicated by an 11pm curfew on events there and Alalshikh’s preference for a 2am UK start to reach a United States primetime audience. The Principality Stadium in Cardiff, which has a retractable roof, had emerged as an alternative. Hearn has since said that America is Alalshikh’s preferred destination, and New York has been floated.

Joshua has been consistent about where he wants it. “It’ll be amazing to for it to be [in the UK]. Imagine that? What is the biggest stadium in the UK? Wembley. Spot on. That would be amazing,” he told The Ring before the Prenga fight. Fury, asked the same question after Wach, would not commit to anything.

There is also a lingering dispute over who is promoting it. Dana White has said more than once that he is involved, a claim Hearn and Frank Warren have both rejected on the basis of the signed contracts.

Fury’s own tune up drew its share of criticism. The Wach fight was staged in front of roughly 1,500 spectators in Pattaya and was not broadcast live on television, with Wach retired on his stool after seven rounds. Wach, 46, has lost seven of his last ten. Joshua’s opponent had 20 knockouts in 20 wins but had not faced anyone near world level.

Both men are through. Neither did it in a way that settled much.