Tony Bellew is not buying the idea that Anthony Joshua’s chin has gone, even after Joshua hit the canvas twice inside the opening round against Kristian Prenga.
Asked on The Stomping Ground whether he shared the widespread concern about Joshua’s durability, Bellew rejected the premise outright.
“No, do you understand that he’s got a rock solid [chin]. It’s not that,” Bellew said. “How can you question someone’s chin when he’s never been starched, and he’s never been flatlined. He always gets up. Even against Daniel Dubois, he always gets up. The fact that he gets up shows there is nothing wrong with his chin. Fitness is what gets you up off the floor. Anybody can go down.”
The Distinction He’s Drawing
Bellew’s argument separates two things that usually get collapsed together: how easily a fighter goes down, and whether he can be put away.
Joshua has lost four times. Two were points defeats to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and 2022. The other two came against Andy Ruiz Jr in 2019 and Dubois in 2024, and in both he rose repeatedly before a referee decided he had taken enough.
Working ringside for DAZN on Saturday, Bellew called the opening round exactly what it looked like.
“We predicted round two but I don’t think we foresaw that. That was chaos. He doesn’t see the uppercut coming and finds himself on the floor without knowing how he got there,” he said. “He showed once again there is no quit. To be that hurt in the first round and get up, that’s the recoveries of power.”
He also pointed at what Joshua did next. “When Joshua gets a fighter hurt he’s the best finisher in the division. Whenever he hurts someone they’re gone. I haven’t seen him drop anybody and they survive, only Andy Ruiz.”
Not Everyone Agrees
Dave Coldwell, the trainer who guided Bellew to a cruiserweight world title, watched the same fight and reached the opposite conclusion.
“Joshua is without a doubt shot to bits,” Coldwell wrote on social media. “Punch resistance looks completely gone. Last thing a fighter loses is his punch and that’s what got him out of jail tonight.”
That split is the whole debate in miniature. Joshua was floored for the sixth time across his last three fights, which is the statistic driving the alarm, and some former fighters have gone further and questioned whether he should pursue Tyson Fury at all rather than protect his health.
What It Means For Fury
The counterargument is that Joshua still finished the job. He recovered, landed a heavy combination in the second and left Prenga unable to beat the count, taking his 30th professional win and keeping the Fury fight on track.
Prenga had raised the chin question himself in the build-up, and the first round handed him more credibility than the result did. Fury, who has already offered his own verdict on the performance, now has a full camp’s worth of material.
