Duke McKenzie watched Anthony Joshua get up off the canvas twice in Jeddah and did not like what he saw.
The three-division former world champion told talkSPORT that Joshua’s ability to take a punch has deserted him.
What we saw was just Joshua falling apart. People talk about his punch resistance being gone, which it clearly has. The wind blows and your legs just betray you as much as your head, you are just gone.
The wind blows and your legs start going, you try to hold on for dear life and you are just gone.
McKenzie knows the feeling he is describing. He was stopped three times across a 46-fight career, twice in his last three defeats, against Steve Robinson and then Santiago Rojas Alcantara in his final fight in 1998.
The performance in question came last month. Kristian Prenga, a heavy underdog, put Joshua down twice in the opening round before Joshua recovered and stopped him in the second.
The context behind it is why anyone is worried. Daniel Dubois stopped Joshua in five rounds at Wembley in September 2024, and his only outing since was against Jake Paul on Netflix in Miami last December, a fight Joshua won with a sixth-round knockout that broke Paul’s jaw but which he called far from his best performance.
Not everyone reads it the same way. Prenga himself, asked whether Joshua is past his best, said it was not true and that Tyson Fury should not expect an easy night.
Fury and Joshua are still unannounced, with the venue argument between Eddie Hearn and the Saudi backers unresolved.
