Anthony Joshua Vs Francis Ngannou Odds
After arguably Anthony Joshua's most impressive victory in recent memory, he gets into the right with the former UFC heavyweight champion who took Tyson Fury to his limit in Saudi Arabia. On Saturday 6th January, news broke that the Anthony Joshua Vs Francis Ngannou fight will take place in Saudi Arabia on March 8th 2024.
It was widely anticipated that Joshua's next opponent would be Deontay Wilder. However, after a fairly abysmal showing against Joseph Parker - who dominated Wilder across the 12 rounds of the fight, Wilder almost feels like a step down for Joshua at this point and the big money fight seems like it will only ever be a dream.
Following back-to-back defeats against Oleksandr Usyk, Joshua has restored his reputation with three victories in a row, a decision victory against Jermaine Franklin certainly didn't do him any favours but a devastating knockout to beat Robert Helenius and a 5th round early retirement of Otto Wallin - who have previous dismantled every opponent but the Gypsy King have made Anthony Joshua look like the fighter we saw years ago.
Opening odds for Anthony Joshua Vs Francis Ngannou
As the fight has just been announced, you won't be able to find specific round betting just yet and we are limited to just the bout odds and draw no bet bout odds - similar to most fights at the early stage. However, Joshua opened the odds as a massive favourite and sat at odds of 1/4 to win two months before the bout. As a massive favourite, those looking for boxing betting tips may find more value in Ngannou rather than Joshua, particularly as the only defeats Ngannou has had fighting in any sport were decision victories.
In his only boxing bout, the Cameroonian took on a man who is deemed as one of the best in the world at getting a decision victory - the heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Fury went into the contest as the major favourite but could only manage a split decision - a decision that enraged the MMA world who deemed the contest as a robbery - one thing is for certain, it was a much closer bout than anybody expected.
Can Joshua knockout the former UFC heavyweight champion?
The boxing world will have just one question, which of these two will come out victorious in Saudi Arabia? The country which seems to be the home of pay-per-view heavyweight boxing at the moment. Joshua has a 2-1-0 record in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he won by decision against Andy Ruiz Jr in December 2019, lost by decision for the WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO and the Ring heavyweight titles against Oleksandr Usyk in August 2022 but Joshua has only won two of his last eight fights by knockout. Whether or not that is because he struggled to get a flush connection, his mental state or ability to hit combinations - only Joshua knows. But one thing is for certain, if this fight happens instead of the Otto Wallin fight, nobody would be talking about a potential Joshua knockout win in March.
However, the Anthony Joshua that fought Wallin seemed significantly more fired-up than we have seen him in a long time - it was the Anthony Joshua that we saw after he got knocked down by Wladimir Klitschko and knew he needed a knockout. When we see that Joshua, he looks a significantly higher level. However, will he be willing to go for the knockout against arguably one of the best knockout artists in combat sports? Our guess is no.
If you're backing an Anthony Joshua win, we suggest it will be by decision. If you're backing a Francis Ngannou victory, likelihood is, that would come by way of TKO.