Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou a “Go” for Saudi Arabia in March

Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder were tentatively scheduled to meet on March 9 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The match was conditional on both winning their matches in Riyadh this past Dec. 23 on the so-called “Day of Reckoning” card.

Joshua fulfilled his end of the deal. He dominated Otto Wallin whose corner stopped the one-sided affair after five frames. But Deontay Wilder, in a shocker, was defeated by Joshua Parker.

What was shocking was Wilder’s hollow performance. He lost every round on one of the scorecards and lost 10 of the 12 rounds on the others. “He looked like a shot fighter,” opined co-promoter Frank Warren who said that the only way that Wilder could resurrect the match was to look so sharp in his next encounter that it would lend plausibility to the rationale that he simply had a bad night.

Today Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed that the former lineal heavyweight champion will still be fighting in Riyadh in March. It won’t be Wilder in the opposite corner, but Francis Ngannou, the former UFC star who gave Tyson Fury a tough tussle in October of last year in Riyadh, decking the Gypsy King in the third round before losing a split decision.

“It’s a done deal,” tweeted Hearn, who said he could not confirm the date but confirmed that there will be a formal press conference in London on Jan. 15. “Another historic night for Riyadh Season,” tweeted Hearn’s bedfellow and former arch-rival Frank Warren, a tweet suggesting that one or more of the heavyweights in his stable may appear on the undercard. Warren has promotional ties to Zhilei Zhang, Daniel Dubois, Joe Joyce, and up-and-comer Moses Itauma.

If Joshua vs. Ngannou goes on March 9, as expected, it would come three weeks after a bigger fight in Riyadh, the match between Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. The winner will become the first fully unified heavyweight champion of the 21^st century.

Anthony Joshua, 34, was born in the London suburb of Watford. He is of Nigerian ancestry with an Irish strain on his father’s side. His triumph over Wallin elevated his record to 27-3 (24 KOs). It was his third straight win following back-to-back setbacks to Usyk. Prior to Wallin, he fought two lightly-regarded foes in Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius, the latter of whom took the fight on short notice.

Francis Ngannou, 37, has a great back story. Born in a remote village in Cameroon where he went to work in a sand quarry at the age of 10, Ngannou turned up in Paris at age 22 where for a time he was homeless, living in the streets. As a cage fighter, he lost only three of 20 matches while gaining a reputation as the hardest puncher in UFC history.

How deep are the pockets of the Saudis? According to his longtime advisor Marquel Martin, Ngannou was paid more for his fight with Tyson Fury than for all of his previous fights combined. His coach Eric Nicksick, who worked Ngannou’s corner against Fury alongside striker specialist Dewey Cooper, says that the money that Ngannou paid him for this one fight was life-changing, bringing tears of joy.

The first prominent bookmaking establishment to post a line on the 10-round fight established Anthony Joshua an 11/1 (minus-1100) favorite with the take-back on Ngannou a shameless plus-640. At six-foot-six, Joshua will have a five-inch height advantage.

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