Francis Ngannou will not abandon MMA for boxing and he explained why after his fight against Tyson Fury.
If Francis Ngannou had gotten knocked out in the second or third round by a flabby, out-of-shape Tyson Fury on Saturday at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that almost certainly might have been it for the hybrid fights between MMA fighters and boxers.
But Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion, not only didn’t get knocked out, he knocked Fury down and, arguably, won the fight.
This weekend, Francis Ngannou thrilled us by standing up to boxing champion Tyson Fury. Indeed, the ‘Predator’ was not far from winning his fight, unfortunately, the judges decided otherwise.
In the process, the world of MMA strongly contested Ngannou’s defeat and recently, it was Kamaru Usman who had his say. However, this defeat did not disorient Francis who will continue boxing, but also of course MMA.
Under contract with the PFL, Ngannou recently declared that he would fight in February or March, although his opponent is not yet known. And he’s not ready to let go of this love for MMA (via ESPN):
»I can do both, boxing and MMA, nothing stops me from doing both. If I have the skills for both, why not. At the moment I have a deal with the PFL and plan to fight in MMA again. I like this. It’s not that I’m more comfortable, but I still like it. I’ll do MMA fights, but I’ll still do boxing. I never intended to take the plunge, to fight and not come back to boxing, that was not the plan at all, ever. So the plan is still the same. “
As it turns out, Ngannou lost a split decision on the scorecards that, no matter how one looks at it, was a victory not only for him and the Professional Fighters League, his new MMA organization, but for MMA fighters in general.
His MMA peers reacted as if he’d won in most impressive fashion, as if he’d routed a prime Muhammad Ali. Junior dos Santos, his one-time opponent and another former UFC heavyweight champion, embraced Ngannou with a massive hug when Ngannou walked out of the ring after losing the split decision. Dos Santos was representative of so many of the other fighters, even boxers, who were in awe of what Ngannou had accomplished.
The legendary boxing Hall of Famer Roberto Duran, one of the 10 greatest fighters in the sport’s long history, said he thought Ngannou won. In doing an interview in English, his second language, he wasn’t clear. And so he turned to a bilingual friend near him and told him to make clear to the interviewer in no uncertain terms he felt Ngannou had won the fight.
