By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury will be fighting 10-round boxing match against Francis Ngannou on October 28th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The fight will be under the rules of boxing.
The PPV price wasn’t listed in the press release for the fight, but that should be revealed soon. Fans want to know how much it’s going to cost to see this “historic event” between WBC heavyweight champion Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) and ex-UFC fighter Ngannou.
Boxing fans likely that don’t follow MMA will have never seen or heard of Ngannou, so this event will have little importance to them, given this is another Conor Mcgregor type of situation.
A lot of boxing fans purchased Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fight against former UFC champion Conor McGregor in 2017, and it was a horrible mismatch. The Nevada Commission sanctioned the fight despite McGregor having no experience in boxing, coming into the match with a 0-0 record.
There’s no word yet whether there will be a title on the line, but it’s entirely possible one could be created by one of the sanctioning bodies to give the Fury-Ngannou bout a sense of importance to validate it in the eyes of the casuals.
The organizers call it a “history-making” fight, but why’s unclear. It’s just a boxer vs. MMA fighter event, and that’s been done more than once.
“Tyson Fury is one of the finest heavyweight boxers in history, and he now has an opportunity to lock horns with an MMA legend. This will be a historic event,” said Fury’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank.
Fury-Ngannou is the “game changer” fight that Fury’s promoter talked about recently. How it changes the game is the big question, as it appears to be a money-grab level fight like the ones boxing fans have routinely been seeing from retired Floyd Mayweather Jr, who has been fighting a mix of social media influencers, low-level boxers and MMA guy in exhibition matches.
Fury vs. Ngannou is another Mayweather bank heist type of fight, and definitely not a “game changer” unless the meaning of that term is taken to mean driving the sport into the ground, making it a joke.
It would be like an NFL team selling an exhibition match against a junior high school-level football team and marketing it to the hilt to make money from naive fans.
The event is labeled “Baddest Man on the Planet,” which is a bit much, given that Fury hasn’t fought a serious opponent since 2021, as his last two fights since have been against washed-up journeymen Derek Chisora and Dillian Whyte.
Fury, the WBC heavyweight champion, could be making as much as $50 million for this 10-round exhibition match, which is unbelievable given that his 36-year-old opponent Ngannou has never fought a boxing match.