By Allan Fox: Francis Ngannou admits feeling “slightly bitter” about being robbed of a rightful victory after getting the better of the #1 heavyweight in boxing, Tyson Fury, last Saturday night in their mega-fight on ESPN+ PPV in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ngannou says he rewatched the fight afterward, and he doesn’t understand how the two judges who scored the fight in Fury’s favor were able to give him the victory. Francis would have gotten a draw if the referee had penalized Fury for hitting him with a blatant elbow.
The elbow was obvious, and the referee failed to dock a point from Fury, who was playing dirty pool with that move. That elbow was thrown with enough force to knockout anybody, but Ngannou took it like it was nothing and showed class by not retaliating.
It’s unclear whether Fury was hoping to knock out Ngannou with the elbow or stun him badly enough to where he could knock him around the ring like he did with Deontay Wilder after hurting him with a rabbit punch in their second fight. Wilder never recovered and was easy pickings for Fury.
Francis wonders whether they were watching a different fight on their monitors than the one inside the ring. They scored it for Fury 96-93 and 95-94.
Fans watching at home on PPV saw a much different fight, as they noted that Ngannou dropped the 35-year-old Fury in the third and had him badly hurt in the eighth round, looking like he was about to go down for a second time.
Even in the rounds where Fury landed more punches, Ngannou’s shots were a lot harder, and that should have resulted in him being given credit by the judges.
Unfortunately for Ngannou, what’s done is done. Fury got his hefty paycheck for the fight with him, and he’s moving on to his next contest against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in early 2024.
There will not be an immediate rematch, and it’s questionable whether there will ever be one. Fury-Usyk will fight twice, and then Fury will likely face Anthony Joshua in their long-awaited British clash, which will see both fighters receive massive money.
Ngannou unhappy with the results
“I have a slightly bitter taste about it. I could have been given the victory. I wasn’t just going there to show up. ‘Oh, I’m here, look at me,'” said Francis Ngannou to Ariel Helwani’s YouTube channel, talking about his unhappiness about being robbed of a victory in his fight over the weekend against heavy favorite Tyson Fury.
It would have taken more than one knockdown for Ngannou to beat a star like Fury. As we saw with Deontay Wilder, he dropped Fury twice in his first and third fights and still didn’t win. In both fights, you can argue that he should have been given a knockout victory.
“I really went there to win the fight, and maybe some people didn’t see that, but that was my real intention, and I really worked hard for it,” said Ngannou. “I think I deserved that victory, and I should have been celebrating that victory.”
The fans worldwide thought Ngannou should have won, but the two judges who scored it for Fury saw it differently. They were more impressed with the light punches he was landing, and they focused on quantity over quality.
Ngannou’s shots were harder and cleaner, which usually would be enough for him to have been given the majority of the rounds, but not in this case.
“Yes,” said Ngannou when asked if he feels that he was ‘robbed of a victory.’ I’m happy with what I did. I’m happy with my performance and what we did together. Everybody put in the hard work for us to get here.
“The competitor in me after that performance, you would hope for the judges to be fair and to have that victory because I really believe I won that fight. I watched that fight again, and I don’t understand how I lost.
“We knew that when we got to the decision, it was going to be tough. Not only because of the fight itself, but there was a lot on the line in the boxing community, politics, for people inside there, they’re going to protect it, and that’s what they did,” said Ngannou.
Francis worried about gassing
“I listened to the scorecards. There are people like [judges] Juan Carlos Pelayo and even Alan [Krebs]; I want to ask what exactly made you score like that? What fight were you scoring? Were you watching another fight on your monitor, or were you watching the actual fight?” said Ngannou.
“In the [ring], I didn’t really know, but I went back and watched [a replay]. There’s not a way that a judge could, basically, the one that scored it 96-93 [for Fury]. I’m like, ‘What the hell was that?’ In fact, when I fight again, those two guys, they won’t judge my fight. I don’t care. No, you’re not fair; you’re not fair,” said Ngannou.
There’s very little chance that Ngannou would have the same judges work his next fight, but if one or two of them are assigned, he can speak up and ask for another. Ideally, Ngannou needs to take the judges out of the equation by focusing on scoring a knockout because that’s the best way to avoid them deciding winners & losers.
“When I got to the tenth round, I was like, ‘I can do this. It’s just like in the gym,’ said Ngannou. “It’s ten rounds, only three minutes left,'” said Ngannou when he realized that he had the stamina to fight a full ten rounds against Fury. “I should have put my feet on the gas more.”
It’s too bad that Ngannou didn’t have more experience to test out his stamina before he took this fight with Fury because then, he would know whether he could push it to the limit or pace himself, which is what he did.
“For some reason, I’m holding back. I’m like, ‘I don’t know, man. I don’t know how I’m going to feel there. I’ve never been here. How is it going to be?'” said Ngannou.
“All that lack of experience was playing against me. I’m like, ‘Don’t overextend yourself and gas out. Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ I think next time will be different because I have a little bit of a feeling of it. I put my finger in the water, and I know the temperature,” said Ngannou.
