By Charles Brun: Promoter Frank Warren predicts the Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou ‘Baddesst Man on the Planet’ event on October 28th will do massive numbers. It’s unclear which country Warren is expecting those PPV numbers to come from, as this is not a sellable fight on paper for U.S. fans.
It would have to be the Brits that make Fury-Ngannou a success, and it’s questionable whether there are enough fans that will be taken in by this farce to purchase it on pay-per-view without a huge undercard involving big names.
Interestingly, the Fuury vs. Ngannou fight was announced without revealing the PPV price. That’s obviously something that fans would want to know, and you got to wonder why that part was left out.
Was the idea to get the fans hooked first on the fight and then give him the shocking bad news later with a wallet-busting PPV price?
The name of the event, ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’, doesn’t makee much sense because Ngnnou, 36, hasn’t competed in a year and a half, and he’s not spring chicken any longer.
As for Fury, the last quality opponent he faced was Deontay Wilder in 2021, and many boxing fans felt that he received a slow count by the referee in the fourth round when he was dropped hard by the ‘Bronze Bomber.’
Since that close call against Wilder, Fury has beaten a couple of old journeymen Derek Chisora & Dillian Whyte, to make some easy coin from the fans. Given the two years without fighting A-level opposition, we don’t know what Fury has left.
He’s clearly aged physically in the face & body since his fight with Wilder in 20221, and he’s starting to resemble his 58-year-old dad.
Some people age quicker than others, and it would appear that Fury is one of them, which is why you can’t call his fight with the 36-year-old Ngannou ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet.’
Will Fury vs. Ngannou break records?
“It’s a great event. It’s the biggest event I’ve ever been involved with. Of course, it is. It’s a huge, huge event,” said Frank Warren to iFL TV about Tyson Fury’s fight with boxing novice Francis Ngannou on October 28th.
“Yesterday, the#1 trending on Twitter with Tyson, and #2 was Ngannou. That’s the public, not just a few guys. This is the general public. This is a massive, massive event. As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to be the biggest event I’ve ever been involved in.
“That’s what it’s going to do. Box office records, everything will get broken. Is he [Ngannou] not the best heavyweight in his combat sports? Is he not in the Guinness Book of Records for being the hardest [puncher]?”
It’s difficult to believe Fury vs. Ngannou will break any kind of record, but if it does, it’ll be due to British fans, not because of U.S. fans. Americans aren’t going to buy this albatross.
If they make it a complimentary free-to-watch deal, a few Americans would possibly watch if they had nothing else going on that night.
“This is massive. It’s against a guy that will come to fight, and that’s what he [Ngannou] will do, and it’ll be exciting. I’m selling it as a massive event between the two best of their respective sports, and if people don’t watch it, it speaks volumes.
“If it does all the numbers that are expected, what does that make it? Whichever way you dress it up, this is a massive, massive event. It’s happening for a reason because everyone knows how big it is.
“Eddie Hearn said that if we make this fight, it’ll be a massive, massive event. You know what? He was right. It’s even bigger now. Do you know why? Because Tyson is undefeated.
“He should have taken the fight. Now he’s got a fight with Daniel [Dubois], and I think he’ll beat him,” said Warren when told that Oleksandr Usyk’s promoter Alex Krassyuk says Tyson Fury should be stripped of his WBC title if he fights Ngannou.
Once Oleksandr Usyk makes easy work of the big lump Daniel Dubois, he can try again to put a fight together with Fury. At some point, Usyk will need to give up and wash his hands of Fury and see him as not worth the time & trouble to negotiate with.
Fury-Ngaannou: Is this as good as it gets?
“We move on to the biggest attraction in heavyweight boxing [Fury vs. Ngannou],” said Warren. “In the last fight, he [Fury] had with Deontay [in 2021], broke all box office records in Vegas for any heavyweight fight.”
Was the success of Fury-Wilder 3 due to Fury or the popular American Wilder? You can make a strong argue meant that Wilder was the reason his fight with Fury broke box office records in Las Vegas for a heavyweight fight, NOT because of Tyson.
If Fury was so popular in America, why isn’t he fighting there? The reason is simple. He’s not a huge name.
“Purse bid for Dillian broke the record for a purse bid. The fight was at Wembley [stadium] and generated 94,000 more people and more money for a one-off event than any money that Wembley has ever been.
“They’re facts. This is the guy [Fury] has a series going out on Netflix next month, the start of his series. He’s huge; he’s massive. These guys have got it wrong because we didn’t feel anything was going to happen this year, and we’ve proved right.
“Where we are now is with a massive, massive event, and we move on to events that create an event. If we weren’t doing that, we’d be sitting here scratching our backsides,” said Warren.
Fury had literally tons of options for fights he could have made instead of fighting the 0-0 novice Ngannou. Instead of going the route of a money grab, Fury could have done the right thing by making a mandatory defense of his WBC title, which he hasn’t done in 15 months.
WBC champions are supposed to make yearly defenses of their titles, but Fury has failed to do so thus far this year.
“We’d love them because they delivered,” said Warren when asked if they could do future events with the organizers of the Fury vs. Ngannou fight in Saudi Arabia. “There’s a fight going on this year in Riyadh in October, and they made it happen with Tyson,” said Warren.
