28 February 2024 , 13:23
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Anthony Joshua has been warned about Francis Ngannou's 'death punch' just days before their boxing showdown.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou fights for the second time as a professional boxer when he faces Joshua on March 8 in Saudi Arabia. And Ngannou showed off his devastating knockout power by challenging fans to beat his score on a punch machine, but they will be hard-pressed to do so as he recorded the maximum score of 999.
The machine was visibly shaking after Ngannou punched it and one fan wrote: "That felt like death in a glove." A second user commented: "The scariest part here is you're not even getting close to your full power potential into that shot." A third comment read: "I think his punch is higher than that but the machine ran out of numbers."
Joshua is also one of the biggest punchers in the heavyweight division and has knocked out the likes of Wladimir Klitschko and Dillian Whyte during his career. 'AJ' had scored a relatively low number of just 848 on a punch machine in 2017 but he shattered this score by later recording 965 on a different machine, although it's worth nothing all punch machines have different calibrations.
Ngannou once recorded a punch at the UFC's Performance Institute that was equivalent to 96 horse power, the same as a Ford Escort travelling at full speed. The Cameroonian's power was on show in his boxing debut against Tyson Fury last October as the dropped the heavyweight champion and only lost by a single point in a controversial decision.
Eddie Hearn opens talks for Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou heavyweight fight
Joshua and Ngannou's fight is billed as 'Knockout Chaos' but the Brit refused to answer whether he will win the fight by stoppage. "Refusing to say doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want it. I think that he’s just being sceptic. Even when you say it doesn’t mean it’s going to [happen]," Ngannou told Mirror Fighting about Joshua's comments.
"I don’t usually fight looking for the knockout expect for one and it didn’t end well. The knockout is something that will come naturally, but based on the statistics or style they can assume it’s like going to end in a knockout. Overall, it’s not something you can guarantee because you don’t know what’s going to happen in the fight."