Former unified king Anthony Joshua proved the notion ‘the bigger they are the bigger they fall’ with a right hand for the ages in the second round that left Francis Ngannou (0-2) on his back on Friday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Ngannou was dropped three times on route. Time was 2:38.

“On the route to the championship you should always stay focused,” said Joshua “This was me stepping aside from that mission. … But when I saw [Ngannou] and the fight against Tyson Fury, I was like ‘damn, this guy can fight’ so I said I need a piece of that.

“He’s an inspiration. … He’s a great champion. This doesn’t take away anything of his capabilities because in boxing it’s one or the other. He can come again.”

Former world champion Joseph Parker (35-3, 23 KOs) got off the canvas twice to defeat the hard punching Zhilei Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) by twelve round majority decision.

Zhang put Parker on the seat of his pants in the third and eighth round but Parker was not to be denied, outboxing Zhang by scores of 113-113, 114-112, 115-111.

“This is a great win,” said Parker, “Zhang is a tough man, knocked me down twice. … I’m very happy. …. We have a rematch [clause], so we’re gonna do it again.”

WBC featherweight champion Rey Vargas (36-1-1, 22 KOs) kept his title fortuitously with a twelve round draw against #1 contender Nick Ball (19-0-1, 11 KOs).

Vargas started the better of the two but the fight turned on its head after the sixth. Ball dropped the champion in the eighth and eleventh but it seems one of the judges must have feel asleep as he scored the fight 114-112 to the champion whilst the other scored in favour of Ball by 116-110, the third couldn’t decide on a victor as he rendered a score of 113-113.

WBA #1 Israil “The Dream” Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs) took the vacant WBA super welterweight title with a fifth round TKO over WBA #2 Magomed Kurbanov (25-1, 13 KOs).