Boxing
Anthony Joshua v Francis Ngannou preview
We are fast-approaching one of the most highly anticipated boxing bouts of the year between two giants of the combat sports world in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 8.
We preview the fight below.
Bet on Joshua v Ngannou with William Hill
Joshua looking to climb his way back to the top
Anthony Joshua has entered the ring three times in the last 12 months following his unsuccessful attempt at reclaiming the heavyweight crown from Oleksandr Usyk back in the summer of 2022. Since then, he has won three from three, and looks to be a vision of his former self in the ring under the tutelage of new coaches Derrick James and Ben Davison, who are all pushing AJ to sit pretty as the world champion once again.
The next obstacle in his way is man-mountain Francis Ngannou, who despite being a professional in MMA until last year, showed an elite performance in his debut professional boxing fight against Tyson Fury back in October which saw him rock the boat a lot more than what people would’ve thought. Joshua is however the overwhelming favourite ahead of this fight at 2/7, and his wealth in boxing experience should prove the difference.
Joshua looks to be a different fighter to the one we saw leave the ring after his second loss to Usyk, which had him looking as if he was on the verge of giving up, however, he instead used those losses to reignite his motivation to become the best again. This can be seen in his most recent bouts against both Robert Helenius and Otto Wallin, both of which he managed to dispatch in a devastating fashion, akin to his performances of old.
Ngannou to prove Fury performance was no fluke
In the build-up to his fight with current WBC heavyweight champion of the world Tyson Fury, many of the naysayers didn’t believe Ngannou’s skills would transfer from MMA to boxing like they turned out to. On paper before the fight, you had the lineal heavyweight champion of the world against a man who’d never stepped a foot inside a professional boxing ring, and despite the odds being way in Fury’s favour, Ngannou managed to rock Fury on several occasions to take the boxing world by complete surprise.
Ngannou is the firm outsider at 11/4 ahead of this fight and goes into the ring 20lbs heavier than Joshua despite being a couple of inches shorter. One might argue that the fact Ngannou has only fought once before could make preparations slightly difficult for AJ, as he’ll have to negotiate the unpredictable nature of Ngannou’s fighting style.
With Ngannou boasting the harder punching power during his stint in the MMA matched up against AJ, who’s managed to finish 24 or his 27 fights inside the distance, we could be in for a real clash of the titans on Friday night. Given Joshua is a seasoned boxer, we can expect to see his cautious style coming out against Ngannou, trying to maintain control in the fight and strike in the latter stages of the contest with hopes the man-mountain Ngannou runs out of steam coming out the gates too hot too early. Granted, Ngannou no doubt has some tricks of his own up his sleeve and has a wealth of AJ fights to analyse in the build-up to the clash, so as an experienced combat fighter himself (albeit in a different discipline), he’ll turn up with his own game plan to put AJ’s winning streak to an end.
Interesting markets to looks out for
Aside from the classic boxing markets such as ‘Method of Victory’ and ‘Method of Result’, William Hill are offering a breadth of markets to offer some value in what is considered to be a rather one-sided bout.
Due to the nature of heavyweight boxing, both fighters have the capacity to knock the other down during various stages of the fight so using the ‘Round Knockdown Betting’ market, you can bet on either fighter to fall victim to a big punch and hit the canvas in a specific round, which we saw a couple of times in the Fury v Ngannou fight. Ngannou managed to knock down Fury in the third round and AJ is 6/4 to be knocked down in the rounds 1-6. Should AJ completely outclass Ngannou and deal a devastating blow in the early rounds, there’s a price of 14/5 for the Cameroonian-French giant to be knocked down in the first two rounds.
Given Ngannou’s obvious capabilities to deal a devastating knock-down blow like he did against Fury despite losing the fight, there should be a lot of value at 5/1 for AJ to be knocked down by Ngannou and turn the fight around and win, whilst being 13/8 to be knocked down at any time during the fight.
William Hill are also offering Top Price Guarantee on Round Betting for Friday’s fight.
