KRISTIAN PRENGA’S manager has claimed he was ILL before fighting Anthony Joshua – while shooting down wild fixing conspiracies.
The little-known Albanian was picked as AJ’s comeback opponent to help prepare him to face Tyson Fury later this year.
Kristian Prenga’s manager has claimed he was ill before fighting Anthony Joshua Credit: Getty
Joshua KO’d Prenga in round two Credit: Getty
But disaster struck in the first round when Joshua was dropped twice – before turning it around in the second with a monster right hand.
Internet conspiracists baselessly claimed the fix was in after Prenga took his foot off the gas despite having AJ in a world of trouble.
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But Prenga’s manager Keith Sullivan admitted his man was tired and punched himself out after battling illness in training.
Sullivan told DAZN’s Ade Oladipo: “This is the first time anybody from Team Prenga is mentioning this, and we had no intention of ever discussing this.
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“I had a little team meeting on a conference call this morning and I felt that, because of the conspiracy theories that were floating, I had to go down this road and I didn’t want to go down this round because…
“Everybody I deal with in boxing, I’m a person that believes in responsibility and accountability, and accept the outcome of things, and we do.
“But, what happened here was Kristian had gotten very sick leading up to the fight. He didn’t spar or train for two weeks before he got to Jeddah.
“He had a 102 (degrees Fahrenheit) fever and he was in bed for eight days straight… he moved camp over to Dubai, he brought a doctor in, drew some blood to make sure there wasn’t something more serious going on.
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The Gypsy King has beaten Mariusz Wach in his second fight of the year to set up a huge fight with Anthony Joshua
And AJ did the same, knocking out Kristian Prenga in the second round of a thrilling encounter – the Brit was knocked down twice in the opening round.
Now fans are looking forward to Moses Itauma’s return for his toughest fight yet against Filip Hrgovic in August.
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“They said he was just run down and they thought it was a flu or cold, or something, and he would get over it.
“It took 14 days, so we had the last seven days before we went to Jeddah for training. We had a sparring partner there in Dubai who we didn’t use at all… we couldn’t get him out of bed to go for a walk.
“In the first round, he came out and just gassed himself out. The instructions in the corner for the second round were, ‘Continue what you’re doing, keep the pressure on, keep pumping the jab and when you have the opportunities, take him’.
“Kristian stood up off the stool to start, when that bell rang for the second round, and he said to me he felt like he was back in that bed that he was in for eight days, when he was gasping for air and had no energy.”
As revealed by JattvibeSport, Prenga, 35, was left in tears backstage, apologising to his team and fans for the defeat.
Joshua, 36, was seen with Prenga’s parents after the bout in a heartwarming moment.
AJ will now turn his attention to negotiations with Fury, 37, who beat Mariusz Wach, 46, in Thailand a day earlier.
Joshua’s already signed deal states the fight must take place in the UK.
But organisers including Netflix prefer a US bout to accommodate primetime US viewing.
Meaning AJ’s deal would have to be ripped up and revised.
