ANTHONY JOSHUA has been warned he will wake up in hospital if his defence is not watertight when he faces Francis Ngannou.
The London 2012 legend, 33, was back to his ferocious best on December 23 when he disfigured Otto Wallin in five ruthless rounds.
But he has not been really whacked by a prime heavyweight puncher since Andy Ruiz Jr stunned him in 2019.
Ngannou, the 37-year-old former UFC heavyweight champ, claims to have the planet’s hardest punch – following a scientific test that rated his right at 96 horsepower – and dropped Tyson Fury in October.
And the 19st Cameroon KO artist has politely told AJ to book himself a recovery room on a Riyadh ward if he cannot avoid all of his punches for all 10 March 8 rounds.
From underneath a stunning gold-embossed African cape, he said: “If I catch him then he’s going to sleep.
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“Remember this is the heavyweight division and everyone is quite strong so you should keep your chin away.
“If you put your chin in the right position and get hit – even by a lightest fighter – then you might wake up in the white room.
“So you better keep your chin away and fight smart.”
Ngannou worked in a sand mine while still a poor schoolboy, didn’t even see a proper gym until he was 22 and smuggled himself illegally to Europe – across the Sahara and Mediterranean Sea – before spending time in a detention centre.
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So we should not be surprised that he accepted a narrow points loss to Fury with a huge smile, when thousands of fans inside the 26,000-seater arena, and at home, were angry his hand wasn’t raised.
He brilliantly explained: “I come from Africa. I come from a continent with 1.3bn people and 60 per cent of them are just youths and not many of them have the opportunity to accomplish their dream. I was living the dream.
“From where I started, from where I was born, to get there that night and accomplish that dream I’ve been carrying for 25 years, do you think I would let some f***ing judges take that pleasure away from me? No.
“I was happy with my achievement, I was happy with achieving my dream after all those years, all the obstacles I had, all the horrors on the way.
“I was there fighting in front of my family. They were there ringside, before the VIPs, it was them.
“My mum was there, my brothers, my sisters, they were there watching, they were on top of the world.
“When the camera turned around, away from the ring, they were the first people who were there. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
Ngannou’s journey from his tiny village of Batie is inspirational and he is proudly investing personal time and influence – as well as hard-earned purses – in his home.
So he is excited to be fighting our Nigerian-Brit, who has the west-African home of his parents – that borders his own – etched on his giant shoulder.
And he is hilariously polite in trying not to offend the six British newspaper reporters peppering him with questions about the Saudi Arabia shootout between Cameroon and Nigeria.
He smiled: “We are both African descendants, we are both looking back and thinking of our culture and community, what we are doing, how we can improve and what it could be and that’s why we talk about a potential rematch in Africa. But, at the end of the day, we both win.
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“We are both bringing something to our communities, we are contributing to the new generation.
“I call this ‘Black Excellency’ – sorry, no offence to you white guys.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
