By Joe Heslop

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Last night the highly anticipated fight took place between British former Olympic Champion Anthony Joshua (AJ) and Mexican-American heavyweight Eric Molina in Manchester Arena. Joshua showed his class as he won by knockout in the third round to take his record to 18 wins by knockouts out of 18 fights. After the fight, his promoter Eddie Hearn took to the ring to announce that Joshua’s next fight will be against former World Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium on April 29th.

Joshua looked dominant from the first bell as Mexican-American heavyweight did his best to stay out of reach of AJ’s big shots and frustrated him. However, he stayed calm and picked his shots until the third round where he won on the knockout in brutal fashion.

Before Joshua took to the ring though the final undercard of the night featured Dereck Chisora and Dillian Whyte, two heavyweights with a past and conflicting stories of why they dislike each other so much. Both talk of a sparring session as the start of their bitter relationship. However, while Whyte claims Chisora threw an illegal punch to the back of the head, Chisora claims that he beat Whyte so much, that he had to pay for a taxi for him to a hospital.

It was a heated week for the two boxers with the press conference ending in madness after Chisora threw a table at his opponent, sending the room into disarray. On the night though it was a slugfest with both boxers giving their all and both seemingly going for a knockout. The two Londoners traded blows for the full 12 rounds before Whyte was crowned King of the ring on points after the judges scored it 115-113 and 115-114, while the third judge scored it 115-144 to Chisora. After the result was confirmed both boxers hugged out of respect for each other as the crowd applauded the fighters.

Elsewhere in the undercard fights Irish boxer, Katie Taylor made it two out of two wins as she beat Viviane Obenauf by a 60-53 margin. She impressed throughout as she dominated the fight knocking down her Brazilian opponent in the second round and outclassing her with a fine performance.

Scott Quigg also won on the night following a ninth-round knockout against Jose Cayetano, with Callum Smith, Frank Buglioni, Luis Ortiz and Kal Yafai also coming out on top in their fights last night.