Joshua Abuses Breazeale, Knocks Him Out in Seventh to Retain Heavyweight Title

Anthony Joshua was impressive yet again Saturday night in London as he electrified the capacity crowd inside the O2 Arena by dominating unbeaten American slugger Dominic Breazeale. The defending heavyweight titlist dropped his foe twice before stopping him in the seventh.

Joshua rocked the slightly taller and much thicker 2012 Olympian in the second and picked him apart for the next several rounds. Breazeale couldn’t figure out how to time the Brit’s vast speed advantage and seemed reluctant to trade with his foe, closing his eyes many times during exchanges. Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs) never stopped trying, though, and took the undefeated IBF heavyweight champion deeper than many had expected.

Joshua, who captured Olympic gold in ’12, battered his challenger throughout, busting up his head and body and completely closing his right eye. Finally, a flurry of bombs to the noggin dropped Breazeale early in the seventh and when he struggled to his feet, the end was only moments away. A sizzling right-left to the head finished “Trouble” for good, the final knockdown finally ending the beating at 61 seconds into the frame.

Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) continues to raise eyebrows and nab attention from all over the boxing world and though he was a heavy favorite going into his Showtime-televised title defense, he dismantled a tough, previously-unbeaten contender with serious punching power.

In the co-featured bout, George Groves (24-3, 18 KOs) controlled the pace and wound up winning a somewhat surprising lopsided unanimous decision over Martin Murray (33-4-1, 16 KOs). While there were no knockdowns in the duel, Groves plastered his foe with dozens of clean shots and wound up winning via tallies of 118-110 on all three ringside cards.

Finally, popular fighter Chris Eubank abused Tom Doran as he knocked him down four times en route to a one-sided stoppage. Eubank (24-1, 18 KOs) dropped his foe once in the third and three more times in the fourth before the mugging was finally halted at the 2:35 mark. Doran fell to 17-1 with 7 KOs. Eubank, meanwhile, called out Gennady Golovkin after the fight.