Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou •

Even if he improves marginally that’s a boxer I pick to beat Joshua. I think he can improve more than that focused solely on boxing. He has a couple years left in him and his physical tools will be going away though.

Look back at his striking vs Stipe he was very crude compared to how he boxed vs Fury.

 

Simply cannot underestimate this guy despite the fact Fury looked like a pile of garbage. Ngannou showed he’s dangerous and I hope Joshua approaches this fight as seriously as possible.

 

Perhaps heavyweight MMA lends itself more to brawling, due to the wrestling aspect or the smaller gloves plus the no KD rule or something else.

I placed a small bet on Ngannou by KO at 5/1.

 

Yeah he definitely has wrestling skills. Another aspect is Nagnou body is going to adapt more to boxing. For instance he has a lot of muscle on him for wrestling, you don’t want that. His body should be more adapted to boxing now also.

I don’t really bet on sports because you never know. I predict Naganou to win but he could get robbed or knocked out. Sports and boxing are not very predictable. I think Naganou will win but I have been wrong many times.

 

Ngannou also started out with boxing before he changed sport to MMA.

 

Yes. Wallin could handle Fury's power but not Joshua's. The same could be for Ngannou.

 

His bio says that he trained boxing a year before going to France.

 

Ngannou isn't beating AJ, no way. He's a way different fighter than that Oaf Fury.

 

You may be right. But the point of my post is not to say definitively that Ngannu is a good boxer, or that he'll beat AJ. The point I'm making is just that there are many unknowns surrounding Ngannu and we simply don't have enough information yet to know whether or not he's the real deal.

He may get beat comfortably by AJ, but as I say, it's far from clear that he will.

 

Yeah hes more basic, less mobile, more hittable, has worse cardio and a worse chin.

 

Yes, it's a good question and a fair point. Ngannou, in many ways, is hard to predict. He is a talented UFC star - with boxing experience - crossing into high level boxing. And we only have one fight to base him on. That fight, of course, was against a top (or the top, depending on your opinion) heavyweight. To me the intangibles are also around that version of Fury, as well as Francis. Was he fit? Was he motivated etc? That would help to put Ngannou 's performance into context. But you're right in that we can only be certain when we see more of him. So we are all kind of judging on one performance, which isn't a straightforward one.
It's true that people (myself included) could underestimating him. But I just have a hunch that other factors were working in his favour also. And I feel that will be borne out vs AJ. But I am a UFC fan and, either way, am happy for Ngannou's success.

 

Even if Fury was out of shape and is pretty much on his last legs (and I think he is), what Ngannou did, absolutely no boxer is gonna overlook him again. In fact, how the Fury fight turned out, I think any HW who fights him is gonna be galvanized to try to plant him into the ground now

 

But more dedicated to the sport and that's a fact.