Anthony Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) was knocked down twice in the opening round before stopping Kristian Prenga (20-1, 20 KOs) at 2:43 of round two on Saturday at the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia. The heavyweight bout headlined The Comeback, a 13 fight card streamed on DAZN pay-per-view, and was Joshua’s first appearance of 2026.

Prenga, who weighed 261.4 pounds to Joshua’s 251, hurt the former unified champion inside the first minute. A right uppercut put Joshua on the canvas, and he rose on unsteady legs. Prenga drove him to the ropes, worked the body, and floored him a second time when Joshua’s glove touched the floor. A separate sequence in which Prenga bundled Joshua down was ruled no knockdown by the referee, per The Ring’s live coverage. Joshua survived to the bell.

Joshua was still clutching his left thigh early in the second when he began firing back. He backed Prenga up with straight right hands, absorbed an uppercut on the inside, then landed a right hand down the middle followed by a right hook that sent the Albanian through the ropes. Prenga did not beat the count. Joshua walked to the opposing corner and embraced Prenga’s team.

“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,” Joshua said in the ring, per NESN.

Asked about Tyson Fury, Joshua said: “I’m going to rip his heart out.”

Joshua had framed the fight as a gate he needed to pass through before anything else could be discussed. “When you speak to me about what may lay ahead … It’s a great opportunity for me to understand where each checkpoint takes me,” he said at Thursday’s final press conference, per ESPN. “Ultimately, the reality of the matter is there is no future unless I get past this checkpoint on Saturday night. We’ve been working since January, working hard, aligning all my stars. I understand there’s a big picture.”

He also declined to treat Prenga as a formality. “He’s very dangerous,” Joshua said at the same event. “He’s a very good fighter.”

Prenga’s manager, Keith Sullivan, had pitched the fight as an upset waiting to happen. “This is a real life Rocky moment. KP has an opportunity to change his life forever. On Saturday night, one person has everything to gain and the other has everything to lose,” Sullivan said. “The greatest story ever told is the story of the underdog. Everyone turning up in Jeddah and tuning in on pay-per-view on Saturday night, is not looking to see AJ win the fight. They’re looking to see if the underdog, Kristian Prenga, can topple this boxing god.”

Prenga, 35, is an Albanian based in Englewood, New Jersey. He turned professional in 2016, had stopped every opponent he beat, and had not lost since a 2017 defeat to Giovanni Auriemma. “I have great respect for Anthony Joshua and everything he has achieved in boxing,” Prenga said when the fight was announced. “Everyone has their moment, and I believe this is mine.”

Saturday was Joshua’s first fight since he stopped Jake Paul in six rounds in Miami in December 2025. Roughly ten days after that bout, he survived a car crash in Nigeria that killed strength coach Sina Ghami and trainer Latif “Latz” Ayodele, and he had their names on the canvas of his corner in Jeddah. He trained for this camp in Valencia, Spain, alongside Oleksandr Usyk’s team under coach Iegor Golub, and the fight was moved from Riyadh to Jeddah earlier this summer. His last competitive heavyweight fight before Saturday was the September 2024 knockout loss to Daniel Dubois.

The result keeps in place the timeline for a fight with Fury, which Eddie Hearn and Turki Alalshikh confirmed as signed for the fourth quarter of 2026. Fury stopped Mariusz Wach in Pattaya, Thailand on Friday and said afterward he was going home rather than traveling to Jeddah. Joshua has said he wants the fight in the United Kingdom. “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. “That’s a dream. Wow. You know, we’re working towards bringing it to a reality and it starts with Saturday.” No date or venue has been announced.

In the chief support, Hamzah Sheeraz retained the WBO super middleweight title against Simon Zachenhuber by majority decision, with scores of 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112. Josh Kelly made the first defense of his IBF junior middleweight title with a unanimous decision over Caoimhin Agyarko, 114-113, 115-112 and 115-112, in a fight that left the champion badly cut and cost him a point for illegal punches in the sixth.

“A messy, hard fight … you don’t get cuts like these from punches, it’s heads and elbows … this is what happens when you have tight skin,” Kelly said afterward. “I knew he would be tricky, a stand-off, awkward fighter with a good gameplan to make it a boxing match and fight in spurts. I had to show a different side of me and that’s what a champion does, winning in the end.” He added: “I want the big names, already took one out in Bakhram Murtazaliev, let me get the other ones.”

Agyarko, beaten for the first time, did not dispute the verdict. “Thought it was close going into the fifth and sixth, took over in the second-half but no excuses, wasn’t good enough. I lost, well done to Josh, tricky and awkward, not good enough for the judges. No complaints, rebuild,” he said. “Heartbroken I could’ve made history here, Adam Booth said they underestimated me, I’m only 29 and tougher than they thought I was going to be, not the result I wanted but great experience, I’ll come again.”

Kelly offered his opponent a reference point from his own record. “I’m here, a world champion and bounced back. I told him don’t take that as a loss, take that as learning [lesson] .. he learned a lot tonight, gotta come back, bounce back the same way I did, prove he gets back to where he wants to be.”

Elsewhere on the main card, Reito Tsutsumi stopped Alvino Herrera 28 seconds into round two after two knockdowns in the first, Jacob Bank shut out Pawel August across eight rounds on all three cards, and Nishant Dev scored three knockdowns in a first round stoppage of Cesar Diaz.

Full results from Jeddah:

  • Anthony Joshua def. Kristian Prenga, KO 2 (2:43), heavyweight
  • Hamzah Sheeraz def. Simon Zachenhuber, MD 12 (114-114, 115-113, 116-112), WBO super middleweight title
  • Josh Kelly def. Caoimhin Agyarko, UD 12 (114-113, 115-112, 115-112), IBF junior middleweight title
  • Reito Tsutsumi def. Alvino Herrera, TKO 2 (0:28), junior lightweight
  • Jacob Bank def. Pawel August, UD 8 (80-72, 80-72, 80-72), super middleweight
  • Nishant Dev def. Cesar Diaz, TKO 1 (2:56), junior middleweight
  • Oleksandr Khyzhniak def. Lenny Patrach, TKO 2 (1:56), light heavyweight
  • Ziyad Almaayouf def. Frank Mango, UD 8 (78-71, 77-72, 77-72), welterweight
  • Mikie Tallon def. Orlando Pino, KO 1, junior bantamweight
  • Mohammed Alakel def. Lydon Chircop, KO 5, lightweight
  • Sultan Almohammad def. Efren Besalduch, KO 3, junior lightweight
  • Omar Hikal def. Brian Castellano, UD, super middleweight
  • Mohamed Mabrouk def. Bryan Zapata, UD, junior welterweight