It was so nearly all gone in 20 seconds. The fight that British boxing has waited almost a decade for. The 13-year career as one of the biggest names and best known faces in professional boxing. As Anthony Joshua hit the canvas early in the first round of his fight against little-known Albanian heavyweight Kristian Prenga, those closest to him contemplated whether this had all been a mistake of heavyweight proportions.“I started to think, did he come back too soon? Did we make a mistake here?” said Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn after the fight at the Jeddah Superdome was over — a relatively safe admission to make given the two-time world champion had managed to survive two first-round knockdowns and deliver a highlight-reel knockout in the second.The build-up to this fight had been dominated by two distinct storylines. The first was Joshua’s return from his involvement in the tragic car crash that took the lives of two of his closest friends and team-mates, Sina Ghami and Latif ‘Latz’ Ayodele — a crash that left Joshua injured and hospitalised for two days. The second was the long-awaited matchup with Tyson Fury — a fight that might no longer be between two fighters in their prime, but one that many believe has to happen after so many years of ‘will they-won’t they?’Those storylines might seem distinct but they have become intrinsically linked by the emotional and physical repercussions of what happened in Nigeria on December 29. Although the immediate aftermath of that day was dominated by overwhelming concern for Joshua’s wellbeing and mourning for the loss of his friends, as soon as he returned to training, talk swiftly turned to the fight that has hung over Fury and Joshua for so many years.It was a similar scenario on Saturday, when, in the aftermath of a chaotic two rounds that demanded all of Joshua’s resilience and powers of recovery, he stood in the centre of the ring holding his young son and asked, ‘Have we got Tyson Fury in the room? Is he here or not?’ of his British heavyweight rival. (He was not, having fought in Thailand 24 hours earlier and declined the offer of a private jet to Jeddah.)Moments later, tears filled Joshua’s eyes and his voice weakened after being asked how the memory and spirit of his friends Ghami and Ayodele — whose families were there watching — had helped him get up from those first-round knockdowns. “It’s been tough,” said Joshua, his face and voice suddenly filled with all the emotion he had held back during the build-up. “That’s my brothers… I don’t want to talk about it.”