Manchester Arena, Manchester - In his second defense of the IBF heavyweight title, Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18KOs) had zero trouble with stopping Eric Molina (25-4, 19KOs) in three rounds to retain the belt.

After the fight was over, Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport officially announced that his fighter will face former beltholder Wladimir Klitschko, on April 29th at Wembley in London. The vacant WBA and IBO world titles will also be at stake in the contest. Klitschko was sitting ringside in Manchester and afterwards he stepped in the ring, going side by side with Joshua and Hearn to announce the April fight to the live audience.

Klitschko has been out of the ring since November 2015, when he lost an upset decision to Tyson Fury. The rematch never happened after Fury withdrew twice, and then had a mental breakdown and vacated his titles.

Joshua captured the IBF title in April with a blowout of champion Charles Martin. He returned a few months later to make his first defense with a seventh round TKO of previously undefeated Olympian Dominic Breazeale.

As far as the actual fight on Saturday night - Joshua took the lead from the start of the fight, pushing Molina back and throwing punches. Molina wasn't doing much, just hanging back and allowing Joshua to work for the full three minutes. More of the same from Molina at the start of the second, with Joshua doing all of the work.

Molina still not engaging at the start of the third and Joshua was getting more active. There was some obvious fear in the physical appearance of Molina, who was defensive and afraid to let his hands go.

A big right hand in the third sent Molina crashing down hard. He barely made it up and mentally he had already checked out of the fight. Joshua started pounding him and the referee quickly jumped in to wave off the contest.