Francis Ngannou completes punch machine with ‘little effort’ ahead of Anthony Joshua fight

Francis Ngannou has taken on a punch machine ahead of his fight with Anthony Joshua, giving reason for fans of his opponent to be pretty worried.

Ngannou will take on Joshua in a fortnight, with the pair going head to head on March 8 in Saudi Arabia.

The fight comes after Joshua was beaten by Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and 2022, which saw him lose his WBO, IBF, and WBA belts in the process.

Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing via Getty Images

But more recently, AJ has had a winning streak, beating Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius and Otto Wallin.

Now, he will take on Ngannou, who lost to Tyson Fury in December in a controversial split decision.

Ahead of his fight in a matter of weeks, Ngannou completed a punch machine which left fans stunned.

"Who can beat my score?" he captioned the video, before hashtagging #JoshuaNgannou.

Without even appearing to put in that much effort, Ngannou registered a whopping score on the machine, which could have Joshua fans slightly concerned.

"Literally no pull back. Ridiculous," one person commented on the clip, while another questioned: "You mean to tell me this video is not edited in any way shape or form?"

And a third added: "No, I can't. You are the hardest hitter alive."

Ngannou scored an impressive 999 on the machine, which many are comparing to Joshua's score of 848 which was recorded on an episode of The Graham Norton Show back in 2017.

Joshua joined actors Martin Freeman and Rachel Weisz, as well as comedian Greg Davies - all of whom had much lower scores on the machine - of course.

Weisz recorded 182, Freeman 594 and Davies 632, plus 417 for Norton.

BBC

With Joshua taking on Ngannou, many are wondering if it could pave the way to a fight with Fury, should he be victorious.

However, it may not be the case, or at least straight away.

Turki Alalshikh - who delivers major boxing events to the Gulf state - recently said that Joshua was in talks to face Croatian boxer, Filip Hrgović.

Alalshikh told SBN: “I’ll tell you a secret - what is in my mind. If Ngannou wins, you know he will have a rematch against the champion [Fury].

“If Joshua wins, then it will take a long time for the winner of Tyson vs Usyk to face [the 34-year-old] as they’ll have a rematch. We’re thinking and discussing with the Joshua camp and [Filip] Hrgović camp, to maybe have a fight between them.”

Fury is set to take on Usyk in May.