When Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou was announced, it was something which the majority of boxing fans loathed, while MMA fans seemed to love it.
But the fight itself is a complete and utter mismatch with the undefeated, boxing lineal heavyweight champion who is light on his feet taking on a giant guy making his professional boxing debut.
The contest will be fun while it lasts and no doubt the build-up will be entertaining, however, the fight will not be as nearly as competitive as Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather, which was not that competitive.
While there will be criticisms fired at both Fury and Ngannou, it’s hard to fault them considering the vast amounts of money they will earn for this fight. Instead, it’s the WBC who are at fault for allowing, and seemingly encouraging this bout to happen.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman claimed that Fury had “no challengers” after failing to negotiate fights with either Andy Ruiz, Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua, and as a result allowed their heavyweight champion to take the Ngannou fight. Ridiculous.
The WBC should have forced Fury to fight Usyk, even if it had to go to purse bids, and if the contest did not take place before a certain date, strip Fury of his title.
Isn’t that the whole point of the alphabet belt system?
If you were Fury would you fight an amateur boxer for tens of millions of dollars or the best boxer Fury will have ever faced?
It’s a no brainer…UNLESS Fury would be stripped of his heavyweight title to fight Ngannou. Which he won’t.
Tyson’s last two fights have been against Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora, no boxing fans wanted those fights. We want Fury-Usyk. But I digress.
There have been some concerns about Ngannou’s health going into this Fury fight due to the huge gap in boxing ability, but I’m not worried too much. Look at him, the guy is a monster who has taken plenty of punches in the UFC. It would have been better to see Ngannou face Deontay Wilder who does not move as much and instead relies on strength.
However, facing Fury is the worst possible opponent for Ngannou in his boxing debut. The former UFC heavyweight champion is coming up against the best, lightest on his feet heavyweight in the world, and I can see Ngannou getting pummelled.
The only way Ngannou has a chance of beating Fury is if the WBC world heavyweight champion decides to play with and gets caught doing something stupid, and there has been evidence of this in the past with Fury frequently fighting at the levels of his competition.
If Fury outboxes Ngannou, he will be booed by the crowd, so instead Fury has promised to meet Ngannou in the middle of the ring and go toe-to-toe with the MMA star. Don’t forget, Fury can hit hard too, he busted Deontay Wilder up multiple times, Fury can knock out any man on the planet and he will do the same to Ngannou, it’s just a case of how long he will decide to take.