Joshua, Ngannou discuss upcoming showdown in Saudi Arabia

Former unified World Heavyweight Champion Anthony Joshua will battle MMA superstar and now Heavyweight contender Francis Ngannou on March 8 at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Fresh off his stoppage win over Otto Wallin, Joshua is riding high, and Ngannou, who dropped Tyson Fury in his pro debut in 2023, hopes to build off that performance.

Joshua should win this fight, but many thought Fury would toy with Ngannou, but that clearly was not the case.

On Monday, Joshua and Ngannou faced off at a press conference in London. Here is what the two fighters had to say.

Anthony Joshua:

“Every fight leads to somewhere, so this fight is my everything; my soul, my spirit, my mind, my body. We’ll see where it leads me, right now, I’m not thinking about any championship belts, or anything. My main focus is Francis, realistically, it’s getting through an intense, focused training camp, because how I train is how I fight. If I get victory in my training camp I am sure I get victory on the night. We’ll put the belts on hold because my focus is on getting through training camp and getting to the fight successfully.
 
(On Ben Davison) “It’s really good working with him and the whole team at the academy. They have helped a lot. I still speak a lot with Derrick James in the States, but being home and having someone just as good, I’m just searching for greatness really. Continuously searching for greatness, how to elevate myself, push forward in every aspect of my game, and this is just another challenge and during each challenge I find out so much about myself. Even though I already know who I am, I know I am going to discover new things about myself and things that can take me to new heights. 
 
“He brings two arms, a body, like every other fighter does. But it’s his mind that is different. Everyone has their own unique mind. In terms of the frame and make up, I’ve seen people like him and he’s seen people like me many times before, but it’s his mind that I have to conquer in the ring. You have to take their soul and spirit, and I am looking for the challenge for sure, it’s going to be good, explosive. There’s many ways to skin a cat, I can counter-punch, he can counter-punch. We can both box, we can both trade, it’s going to be a good fight – and shout out to His Excellency, my promoter, my team at 258 for getting me in this position to showcase why I am the top Heavyweight in the UK. I’m not really concerned about the world, I’m trying to conquer where I live and make everyone know that I am the one that puts boxing on the map.”
 
Francis Ngannou:
 
“Thank you to my brother, His Excellency, for once again putting me in this position to live my dream and have all those great experiences like I had in Riyadh two months ago, it was amazing. Hopefully this will be the same thing.
 
“I’ve been sitting here and listening to people talking and even Eddie praising me, and I appreciate that, but at the same time, I am not sure if he wants me to sleep on his guy – but that’s not going to happen. I am just a beginner out here that’s going to train really hard and do everything as the underdog to win the fight. 
 
“I don’t take my last fight as a reference, I know exactly where I am at, I’m going to get better and better and that’s how I see things. I’m preparing for a tough fight, the Fury fight was great, but that’s in the past and I have a new challenge in front of me, and I take it more serious now than before because now I think there’s something more on the line, which is probably the Undisputed fight. So let’s see, I will do something that no-one has done before and I believe I have the tools to do that, starting with having the win over ‘AJ’ on March 8 in a big fight – not an easy fight, but a possible one and I am going to take it.
 
“I’m going to fight him, so what do you think I am going to do? I will look for his chin. That’s what you do in a fight, you try to hit someone on the chin or wherever to try to hurt him. I heard he doesn’t have a chin, I don’t know if it’s true or not, we’re going to find out and I hope that I have the opportunity to test that – that’s my wish.”

Here is the undercard, which includes a big heavyweight showdown:
 
The heavyweight division will take further shape when the Chinese giant Zhilei Zhang (26-1-1, 21 KOs) defends his WBO Interim world championship against former world champion Joseph Parker (34-3, 23 KOs) from New Zealand.
 
Rey Vargas (36-1, 22 KOs), the WBC World Champion from Mexico will make a first defence of his belt when he takes on No.1 contender, the Liverpool featherweight firebrand Nick Ball (19-0, 11 KOs).
 
Featuring on the card is a Battle of Britain at Lightweight, where top young contender and IBF European Champion Mark Chamberlain (14-0, 10 KOs) from England will challenge for the European Champion, Welshman Gavin Gwynne (17-2-1, 5 KOs).
 
Also performing in Riyadh will be Australian Heavyweight hopeful Justis Huni (8-0, 4 KOs), who will be looking to make his name in the flagship division (opponent details to be included ASAP) plus Cruiserweight prospect Roman Fury (3-0, 1 KO), British Super-Welterweight Jack McGann (9-0-1, 6 KOs) and local Saudi Arabian Super-Lightweight Ziyad Almaayouf (4-0, 1 KO).