Joshua vs Ngannou

Unless Joe has randomly been training to stop HW wrestlers from taking him down like their lives depended on it for a decade plus, its probably safe to assume Ngannou is stronger.

I reckon hes got a better chin than AJ at least, dunno about Parker, or whether he hits harder than Zhang or Bakole. He certainly hits hard enough to have AJ in trouble with one good shot though, whereas I dont know if the same is true in reverse.

 

Arent they entitled to it really? its an MMA guy coming over to boxing and taking on top fighters under a ruleset that favours them. Hes showing balls, giving up all of the additional weapons he could use to wreck these dudes and in the Fury fight STILL managed to give a good account of himself while fighting on Furys terms. Meanwhile from the other perspective you have these top ranked boxers (in Furys case a literal belt holder) fighting an 0-0 in boxing MMA guy instead of each other, and they dont compromise on the ruleset one bit, that in itself makes them the bad guys in this scenario, imo.

If a boxer was going over to MMA and immediately giving a good account of himself against literal top 5 ranked guys I think boxing fans would be entitled to get a little obnoxious about it really.

 

IMO Ngannou will win.
But the second thing is not clear to me.
If AJ wins should it be a "big win" considering Ngannou is 0-1.

 

Personally I don't think so, but you yourself would have to rank it as a big win: based on what you said, you have picked Ngannou to follow up his controversial loss to one of the big three, with a win over another of the big three. Therefore it would have to be considered "a big win" for Joshua

The way I see it, is Fury is closer to shot than many of us want to believe, and Ngannou managing to make the guy, who many at the time was thought to be #1, look so bad attests to that. Poor performance or not.

Unfortunately, whether I like it or not, the WBC has ranked him top #10. So from their perspective it will also be "a big win" for Joshua.

And on top of that the Saudis want to match the winner of Joshua v Ngannou with the winner of Usyk v Fury. So yet again, sadly, this will be "a big win" for Joshua.

As I say, I don't see it that way. But I understand it is a necessary win from the view point of bringing some respect back to boxing as a martial art.

 

Nice analysis; congratulations.
I didn't analyze that deeply (and I didn't know Ngannou was WBC No.10), I just looked at Ngannou's score.

 

That is not excuses Fury fanboys use that as an excuse.

 

Another good non biased post
I tend to honestly agree. I think Joshua should be too seasoned to let this slip, but he may have a couple of occasions where he is being tested

It would be a great fight if Joshua comes out swinging, but I doubt he will take the risk with potential superhighway around the corner

 

AJ decision.

 

Fury cannot just show up fat and say "I only lost coz I'm fat lol".

 

No, but his fanboys will say "He wasn't in shape. If he HAD Been in shape, he would have knocked Usyk out".
Anything to excuse his behavior.

 

Joe Pyfer beat Francis Ngannou's punch machine record and he has the video evidence to prove it. Joe Rogan revealed on his podcast that the UFC middleweight hits harder than former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.19 Jan 2024
UFC star Joe Pyfer shares video proof of him breaking Francis ...

 

Ngannou only did well against Fury because Fury is not a great fighter, and I don't think much of Joshua either so if he gets run over I won't be surprised.

Any of the great heavyweights of the past would destroy Ngannou, hell even Floyd Patterson would destroy him.

 

Don't forget the old "he raises his game to the level of his opponent"

 

Personally before the Fury fight I felt if Ngannou could try overwhelm Fury with volume early he might get to him. There's going to come a time when Fury doesn't beat the count. It was the only way I could see an Ngannou win however unlikely it might be and I was wrong. Ngannou brought a different fight to what many expected but I don't think it was that Ngannou was very good, more like Fury was bad and it flattered Ngannou.

I think Fury may be a little shop worn but we'll see soon enough. I don't think AJ is though and I give Ngannou even less chance than I thought he had against Fury. I think if he tries to overwhelm AJ early then he gets knocked out early. On the other hand if he sits back and let's AJ work him out and find his range then AJ will put it on him when he feels like it.