By Robert Segal: Looking old, poorly conditioned & slow, Tyson Fury (34-0-1, 24 KOs) labored to a ten round split decision over MMA fighter Francis Ngannous (0-1) in their crossover clash at the Boulevard Hall in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ngannou did an outstanding job of beating Fury at his own game, knocking the stuffing of him when he would attempt to grapple, club & lean in close.
That’s the style that Fury had used to beat Deontay Wilder twice, Dillian Whyte & Dereck Chisora, but tonight it was totally ineffective against Ngannou, who was like an unmoveable stonewall on the inside, outmuscling Fury and nailing him with effortless clubbing shots in close that had huge power on them.
You could hear the loud thudding impact of Ngannou’s close-range shots as they landed to the head of Fury, and it was surprising how much power he was able to generate on his punches without winding up on them the way normal fighters do.
By the end of the fight, Fury’s forehead was reddened & lumped up, and he was continually dabbing at his nose as if it may have been broken by the powerful shots from Ngannoy.
Scores
The scores were 95-94 for Ngannou, 96-93, and 95-94 for Fury.
After the contest, fans on social media screamed bloody murder, feeling that Ngannou had been robbed blind by the two judges who scored the fight in Fury’s favor.
Indeed, the fans saw Ngannou winning by a close decision, especially given the way that Fury fell apart in the second half of the contest after his gas tank ran dry.
Although Ngannou didn’t throw a lot of shots down the stretch, he getting the better of the rounds from the sixth through ten due to his sledgehammer blows.
Fury tasted the canvas in third round after Ngannou walloped him with a hard right-hand shot that had badly buzzed. Fortunately for Fury, Ngannou couldn’t finish the job because he looked there to be taken.
At the end of the contest, it appeared that two of the judges gave it to the wrong guy, as Fury didn’t look like he did enough to win because he was dropped and beaten up by Ngannou, who looked unbelievably good tonight for a fighter making his pro debut in boxing.
With the victory, Fury can proceed to his undisputed heavyweight contest against IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk on December 23rd in Saudi Arabia. Obviously, this isn’t the best way for Fury to move into that fight, but oh well, he’s not going to turn it down.
We don’t know how Fury’s knockdown and getting hurt by Ngannou will affect him moving forward into his undisputed clash against Usyk. It’s not the ideal situation for Fury to march into a fight with Usyk after being knocked down and stunned by Ngannou. Will there be any lasting effects from that knockdown for Fury?
The Saudis are giving Fury a boatload of money to fight Usyk, so the fight will happen as long as Tyson isn’t injured tonight.
“Everybody thought it was going to be a mismatch, but he was a lot better [than people thought],” said Ricky Hatton to Boxing King Media, reacting to the difficult fight that Fury had received from Ngannou tonight.
“When people said before the fight that Tyson would knock him out in one or two, I didn’t think he would. He was a very strong opponent. Technically, I thought he [Ngannou] was a lot better than I expected for a UFC fighter.
“When he started out, his frame was good; he was catching shots. So give him a lot of credit for the way he fought. He took Tyson by surprise, too.
“Tyson was touching him the way he does, and he does it so well, but when someone is stocky and a big monster like that. When you throw it [a jab] stiff, you’re less likely to get hit with a right over the top,” said Hatton, reacting to being told that Ngannou was countering Fury’s shots with his left hook.
“I didn’t think Tyson would struggle the way he did, but I didn’t think it was a forgone conclusion like everybody expected. A lot of people thought it could have gone either way. Yeah, it could have gone either way. I think Tyson did just enough.
“Should he [Fury] have taken it with the Usyk fight in front of him? I don’t know because he got caught, didn’t he? We don’t know if that’s going to set things back. I think we all expected him to win a little bit better than that. That’s fair for me to say,” said Hatton about Tyson.