Tyson Fury was very close to his first defeat in his boxing career when he met with a cross-over heavyweight boxer, Francis Ngannou, in the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, on Saturday night, October 28.
From when the bout was announced to the point it kicked off, Tyson Fury was the favourite to win because he had never suffered a defeat in his career, and Francis Ngannou had only had less than four months to train as a boxer.
Recall that the 37-year-old Ngannou has been a mixed martial arts heavyweight fighter in over 10 years and is not known for boxing. However, after leaving UFC, he decided to try his hands on boxing.
Interestingly, he decided to start with one of the best in the game and he didn’t disappoint as he even made the British heavyweight boxer land on the ground during the bout.
Ngannou was so good that Fury had to win the bout in a split decision as one of the three judges scored the fight 95-94 in the Cameroonian favour while the remaining two scored 96-93 and 95-94 in Fury’s favour.
After the fight, the 35-year-old British boxer whose face was heavily impacted by Ngannou’s hard punches, admitted that the Cameroonian gave him one of the toughest fights of his career.
“That definitely wasn’t in the script,” Fury told TNT Sports.
“I got caught round the back of the head [for the knockdown]. I wasn’t hurt. I got up and got back to my boxing.
“He’s an awkward man and a good puncher and I respect him a lot. He’s given me one of my toughest fights of the last 10 years.”
Francis Ngannou will reportedly earn £10 million while the WBC heavyweight champion earns, £50 million from Sunday’s bout.
Fury’s split victory over the Cameroonian made it 35 times the British have gone without a defeat (34 wins and one draw).
Ngannou who is obviously proud of his performance against Fury revealed that he came into the bout with an injury and stressed that the outcome of the fight has assured him that he can box.
“My training camp was only three and a half months and I came into this with an injury,” Ngannou said. “But I don’t want to give excuses. I will look at what I can do next to improve my game to come back even better.
“Now I know I can do this, get ready. The wolf is in the house.”
Fury’s next point of call is the much anticipated undisputed heavyweight bout against Ukrainian heavyweight boxer, Oleksandr Usyk who is the current holder of WBA, WBO, and IBF titles. The bout is expected to go down on December 23.
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