Johnny Nelson believes that the off performance from Tyson Fury against Francis Ngannou showed that he either didn’t train properly or “his legs are gone” at this point in his career.
Nelson feels that WBC heavyweight champion Fury’s next fight against IBF/WBA/WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk in February will answer whether his legs are gone.
It’s believed that the vast majority of Fury’s training camp was focused on weight loss in the form of crash dieting. If his training camp was 90% fat farm and 10% boxing training, it’s no wonder he was so poor against Ngannou.
Fury looked like a person who had been on a crash diet that one goes on when they’re trying to rapidly take off weight, and his physique showed that he’d lost muscle.
His upper body looked atrophied, and his waist was still fat, meaning he needed a longer camp.
Johnny states that Fury’s brother Shane said there were “too many yes-men-in his training camp, who were afraid to tell him like it is for fear of losing their jobs. Fury’s banning of media outlets shows that he doesn’t take criticism well, almost like a leader of country.
What Nelson fails to realize is that Fury’s legs have been gone for a long time since 2020, but he’s been able to disguise it by these methods:
- Mauling
- Weak opposition
- Roughhouse tactics
“Tyson didn’t deserve the win, but he got the win because he landed more shots due to his pedigree, and we know who he is. So that’s why he got the nod,” said Johnny Nelson to Secondsout about Tyson Fury and his win over Francis Ngannou.
Fans think Fury got the decision because of his popularity and because he’s signed already for a massive fight against Oleksandr Usyk. When you have a fighter as popular as Fury, that puts him in a strong position to win close rounds.
“Francis Ngannou, that was his first professional fight, and if he got the win, you couldn’t complain,” said Nelson. “Ngannou was the powerful one and the one who pushed back. The only person who was unprofessional was Tyson Fury.
“So, he was either unprofessional, or Tyson Fury is starting to slip, and his legs have gone. Tyson Fury, his movement, if you’re saying you trained, then your legs are gone. I’m saying something that nobody has actually picked up on,” said Nelson.
Fury hasn’t been the same fighter since he came back from his nearly three-year layoff after his win over Wladimir Klitschko.
The main reason Fury didn’t get beaten when he came back in 2018 is because he fought Deontay Wilder instead of a more talented heavyweight.
He also got lucky by the referee Jack Reiss inexplicably giving him a count after being knocked unconscious in the twelfth round. That looked to some like the ref gave Fury special treatment.
“I think his legs are gone. If you look at his movement, it took him six rounds to get his range,” said Nelson. “This guy [Ngannou] was clipping him, putting him under pressure. This guy didn’t have one professional boxing fight. That should have never happened in a million years.
“Even if Tyson Fury underestimated, then Tyson Fury’s jabbing & movement should have been enough to keep him off. I just thought, ‘His legs are gone.’ It happens to us all at some point. I’m telling you now: I think this is the beginning of the slide of Tyson Fury,”‘ said Nelson.
Fury should have been able to still win against Ngannou, but he was so drained from weight loss that he couldn’t. That fat farm that he was on during camp didn’t prepare him for a hard fight.
“He surrounds himself with people who are scared to tell him the truth because there’s so much involved,” said Nelson about Fury. “They don’t want to lose their job. If he barks at them, they’ll back up because they value their job.
“This is going to disable your development if you all of a sudden cannot take constructive criticism or counsel. Everyone around you will say, ‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’ Shane was right. Shane was in that camp and was right to say that there are too many yes-men,” said Nelson.
