Tyson Luke Fury vs. Francis Zavier Ngannou

Don't watch it. Who cares the sport moves on. Boxing just get attacked all day everyday and twice on Sundays. I don't care. It is the hardest sport in the world.

 

I have a feeling this will be another Wallin situation: gave an overconfident Fury a tough distance fight, allegedly no good. Goes on to school 2x title challenger Breazeale, be blatantly ducked by 70-30 favourite A-side Whyte 10 days out and beat 70-30 favourite A-side Gassiev.

"I told Ngannou after the spar: 'You can come to boxing no problem, this is easy for you'. Ngannou is one of the strongest men you will ever see in any combat sport." - Joe Joyce, 2020

"Francis can bang, he is very strong, I mean, who knows, he could knock Dillian Whyte out man." - Joe Joyce, 2021

Ngannou’s attributes (pre-Fury)

6’4, 83 inch reach, 272 lbs ripped

Switch hitter

Big power in both hands, most dangerous puncher in MMA history, has held the world record on a punching machine since 2018

14-15 years striking experience (MMA and boxing)

Lineal UFC heavyweight champion

Iron chin, never dropped or stopped in 21 MMA/kickboxing fights

Easy to underestimate (17-3 MMA fighter, 21 months inactive, 0-0 as a boxer, outstruck by D. Lewis and Gane, gassed badly against Miocic 1, only one win past 10 minutes in 21 MMA/kickboxing fights)

Pressure on experienced boxers not to get KO’d by an MMA fighter

No boxing footage to study

 

LOL that is what they are claiming. He sure did not look like that physically.

But if that is somehow true somehow true, I submit Fury is shot.

 

That makes Ngannou‘s performance even more impressive, but I doubt Fury trained seriously for this fight.

 

Its a mystery what happened .

Surely tyson fury somehow underestimated that ngannou is indeed build like a tank and he never before faced somebody with that physical strenght and ability to eat shots unimpressed but that does not explain ngannou,s ring iq was really decent .

This means mike tyson is the best boxing trainer ever lived ? Forget sugar hill and anybody else ?

 

Boxing was apparently his first passion, he started at 22 and transitioned to MMA at 27. He's been sparring his countryman Takam for many years, no doubt a lot of other boxers too. Rahman KO'd Lewis on 8 years of boxing experience, Foreman KO'd Frazier on 6. 14-15 years striking experience, much of it with world class coaching and facilities, is nothing to joke about.

People assumed that he couldn't possibly be any good at boxing because he went into MMA where there's less money but it doesn't always work like that. The talent pool in MMA is far more shallow, so Ngannou was able to rise to the top a lot faster and more reliably than he could in boxing. It was the "safe" option for him in terms of making very good but not great money, though if you become UFC champion then you have huge crossover opportunities in TV, films and boxing matches, so it was a sensible choice. And given his power, chin and massive build he is more naturally suited to MMA where there's no KD rule and TD's are a huge threat, unless the boxing match involves a lot of grappling as Fury-Ngannou did.

Some made the same mistake about Usyk funnily enough. There's less money and prestige at cruiser, so apparently the only reason Usyk could be fighting there must be because the top heavies would blow him out. This logic turned out to be very flawed and it's less excusable there because we've seen Holyfield beat Bowe, Spinks beat Holmes etc.

 

A 12 week camp of lackluster training which he did NOT take seriously at all, and was probably undedicated throughout. Not to mention the man's body conditioning was horrible. He looked like an uncoordinated oaf in there against a plodder built like a Rhino.

 

He looked absolutely horrible in MMA as a boxing technician. Against Fury, FN was was much much better but still not somebody I'd favour over any decent boxer. Fury looked like total hot garbage and if he does face Usyk on the 23 Dec I expect Usyk is going to nail the big dosser into his coffin and end his career. Let's see Ngannou vs somebody that takes him seriously before handing out rankings. That version of Fury would have been put to sleep permanently by Wilder.

 

He may well have had to shed a lot of weight over 12 weeks but I doubt he did much sparring at all.

 

"Let's see Ngannou vs somebody that takes him seriously before handing out rankings."

These are just our opinions based on the evidence available to us. Everyone who voted so far is backing him over Whyte, as Joyce was based on their sparring. Was Joyce's opinion "premature"? I doubt it.

Here's a baseline: top 100 heavyweight boxer (Boxrec) Greg Hardy is a UFC reject journeyman and he dominated three experienced boxers in his first 12 months as a boxer. I already knew he was a far inferior striker to Ngannou based on what we saw in their MMA careers.

Greg Hardy’s professional boxing career

Began his combat sports career in October 2016 at 28, pro boxing debut in October 2022

KO/TKO’d five times across three sports, mostly in high profile UFC events (Tybura, Tuivasa, Spivac, Watson, Flores), heavily ridiculed by media and fans but still very aggressive; “him or me” mentality, fights like a man who is indifferent to getting KO’d and has jumped back into the ring just 91 days after a KO loss

6’5, 310-330 lbs

Pressure on experienced boxers not to get KO’d by a “glass chinned NFL/MMA bum”

Dominated 12-1 Rahman Jr. (UD4), 15-4 Corbin (RTD2) and 14-1 Neely (TKO in 66 seconds, only stopped by Hardy across six TCL one rounders) in his first 12 months as a boxer

As of October 29th 2023, Hardy (3-0 pro) is ranked as the 94th (out of 1424) best active heavyweight boxer in the world and the 20th in America (out of 370) by Boxrec

 

2022 Whyte barely scraped past Jermaine Franklin, who is a nobody. So maybe they are right.

 

Franklin's an experienced boxer who also went the 12 round distance with Joshua and gave him a decent fight.

 

Franklin has moobs.

Ngannou is an athlete.

Please don't compare the two.

 

You misunderstand me. I was contesting his claim that Franklin is a "nobody", or if he is then he's a nobody who is among Joshua's top 10 wins and one of only 4 fighters (6 if you count rematches) not to have been stopped by Joshua in 29 fights. Ngannou is clearly far more dangerous than Franklin and I was saying this before the fight.

 

Maybe Whyte, he was garbage. The rest are clearly better until we see more from Francis.