Two world-title fights have been added to the undercard of Anthony Joshua’s next bout, as the British heavyweight faces Kristian Prenga on 25 July.
Joshua will take on Prenga in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in a warm-up fight for his long-awaited clash with Tyson Fury, which will take place at an as-yet-unknown date – potentially at Wembley Stadium in London.
Joshua, 36, will fight Albanian Prenga one night after Fury’s own warm-up bout, a contest with Mariusz Wach in Thailand.
And Joshua vs Prenga has solid support in the form of two world-title fights at the Jeddah Superdome, as Hamzah Sheeraz and Josh Kelly star on the undercard.
Sheeraz, 27, will defend the WBO super-middleweight title against Simon Zachenhuber, having won the vacant belt in his most-recent outing – a second-round stoppage of Alem Begic in May, on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk’s victory over Rico Verhoeven at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Meanwhile, 32-year-old Kelly puts the IBF super-welterweight belt on the line against Ireland’s Caoimhin Agyarko, having also picked up the gold in his latest outing – a hard-fought decision over Bakhram Murtazaliev in January.
Sheeraz will enter his fight with an unbeaten record of 23-0-1 (19 KOs), while Germany’s Zachenhuber, 28, is 29-1 (18 KOs).
Agyarko, 29, is also unbeaten at 18-0 (7 KOs), while Kelly’s record stands at 18-1 (9 KOs).
Joshua’s own fight will be his first since a December car crash, which left him injured and claimed the lives of two of his teammates. The accident in Nigeria occurred just days after “AJ” stopped YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in Miami.
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Joshua is expected to face Fury, a fellow former two-time world heavyweight champion, twice over the next year. Saudi matchmaker Turki Alalshikh has said Wembley could host the first of those showdowns before the end of 2025, but on one condition: ring walks for the main event take place at 2am BST, to ensure a bigger global audience.
