Should the 35-year-old Albanian produce a massive shock and beat Anthony Joshua in Jeddah on Saturday night, he would instantly become a major player in a fragmented heavyweight division. He would also make himself extremely unpopular with British fight fans.

The 12-round fight is available on DAZN pay-per-view.

If Prenga (20-1, 20 KOs) can upset two-time unified champion Joshua, it would totally derail a long awaited Battle of Britain between Joshua and his rival, Tyson Fury.

Provided Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) beats Prenga and Fury gets past Poland’s Mariusz Wach in Thailand on Friday, it is widely expected that the rivals will meet before the end of the year.

Prenga insists that Joshua has made a terrible mistake by choosing to fight him and he told The Ring that he is determined to prove it.

“It's not good. I told him before, it's not good to make a plan before God,” he said.

"Only God can make a plan for you and for me and for everybody and he make a plan before God to fight Tyson Fury.

“First, he needs to fight me. How does he know what's going on with me? I'm going to cancel the fight.”

As well as being seen as the final obstacle between himself and a fight with Fury, Joshua’s decision to fight Prenga has been described as his first step on the road to him becoming a three-time heavyweight champion.

Much of that hope is based around him rediscovering his form of old and positive stories emanating from his training camp with Iegor Golub and Oleksandr Usyk’s training team.

There are reasons to be cautious. Joshua is now 36 years old and hasn’t boxed a legitimate heavyweight since he was knocked out in five rounds by Daniel Dubois in September 2024. He will also be having his first fight since the tragic, traumatic car accident that took the lives of two of his closest friends in December.

Prenga isn’t buying the hype.

“AJ is a great fighter, brother. He has everything but now I think his career is done. I think it's worse than it's ever been. It's on the downhill,” he said.

“I don't know if I retire [Joshua] but I'm going to win the fight.”