{"id":2879,"date":"2024-02-07T19:42:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T18:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2024-02-07T19:42:43","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T18:42:43","slug":"francis-ngannou-i-will-be-the-one-to-take-joshuas-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/francis-ngannou-i-will-be-the-one-to-take-joshuas-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Ngannou: I will be the one to take Joshua&#8217;s soul \u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><strong>Francis Ngannou has promised to take Anthony Joshua&#8217;s soul in their March 8 boxing superfight in Riyadh.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">The French-Cameroonian fighter&#8217;s talk was spurred on by remarks made by the British fighter in an interview with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazn.com\/en-GB\/news\/boxing\/anthony-joshua-vs-francis-ngannou-aj-aims-to-take-mma-stars-soul\/1o8j4dg8oh8mt1drn8ejyym7e9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><em>DAZN<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on January 15:<\/h4>\n<blockquote class=\"m-blockquote l-inline\">\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This fight is my everything: my soul, my spirit, my mind, my body. Right now I\u2019m not thinking about any championship belts,&#8221; Joshua explained. &#8220;&#8230;.\u00a0You have to take someone&#8217;s soul, you have to take their spirit. And I&#8217;m looking forward to the challenge for sure.&#8221;<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4>Speaking recently on the High Performance podcast, Ngannou responded to a pre-fight promise of Joshua\u2019s regarding a quote about breaking Ngannou\u2019s spirit and taking his soul.<\/h4>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_88649\"  width=\"696\" height=\"391\"  data-origwidth=\"696\" data-origheight=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FLbo6OIZw7w?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h4>Ngannou believes the direct opposite will happen. &#8220;The Predator&#8221; responded to Joshua&#8217;s remarks in an interview on February 4:<\/h4>\n<blockquote class=\"m-blockquote l-inline\">\n<h4>&#8220;They say never say never. Nothing is impossible, right?\u201d Ngannou told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FLbo6OIZw7w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><em>High Performance<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWe don\u2019t know the strength of Anthony Joshua&#8230; but we\u2019re going to find out in two months. We\u2019re going to find out, and I think the reverse is going to happen. I\u2019m going to be the one taking his soul.&#8221;<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">The general agreement is that Joshua is expected to secure a clear victory in this upcoming bout. Ngannou faced overwhelming odds as an underdog against Tyson Fury in late 2023, and while the margins are slightly narrower this time, it hasn&#8217;t deterred pundits and boxing legends from cautioning &#8220;AJ&#8221; about the impending match.<\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lennox Lewis, widely regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, warned Joshua about the optics of facing Ngannou.<\/h4>\n<blockquote class=\"m-blockquote l-inline\">\n<h4>&#8220;If AJ beats Ngannou, which he should, does that elevate him to a shot at undisputed?&#8221; Lewis said in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LennoxLewis\/status\/1747681132877947160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Twitter thread<\/a>\u00a0in January. &#8220;Beating [Otto] wallin &amp; Ngannou? There&#8217;s much better case for the winner of [Joseph Parker vs. Zhilei Zhang].&#8221;<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The Lion&#8217;s&#8221; words ring true, but Joshua has already alluded to the fact he isn&#8217;t chasing undisputed status anymore, &#8220;I&#8217;m done with all that,&#8221; Joshua told The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/anthony-joshua-next-boxing-fight-29589059\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mirror.<\/a><\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">So even though he came within a hair\u2019s breadth of pulling off one of the greatest upsets in combat sports history, Ngannou is no longer dwelling on the judges\u2019 call against Fury.<\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWhy? I mean, I won,\u201d Ngannou said. \u201cLook at me now. Look at my life. Look at where I was when you think I lost. You think because some foolish judges make some decision, that changes anything in my life? My family that I was telling you about, they were sitting in the first row watching that fight. The dream that I was carrying since I was a kid, I was that night living that dream. On top of the world, I was there. And for all the people that [have] been doubting me, I was there proving them wrong. For everybody that ever looked down at me, I was there proving them wrong. They were home watching me on their TV.<\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI have won everything. You think because some judges make a decision? It\u2019s not a court. The only decision that a judge can make to change my life is a court, if they sign me to go to jail. But I\u2019m out here. In fact, because of that fight, from that fight I won this fight. I won everything. I won everything that night in that fight. I think I won everything from boxing, and the least that they could get back was to get that, \u2018Oh, you son of a b****, you\u2019re not taking everything from us.\u2019 What would have happened if they had given me a decision? It makes boxing look really bad. They need to save face at some point. I understand it.\u201d<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francis Ngannou has promised to take Anthony Joshua&#8217;s soul in their March 8 boxing superfight in Riyadh. The French-Cameroonian fighter&#8217;s talk was spurred on by remarks made by the British fighter in an interview with\u00a0DAZN\u00a0on January 15: &#8220;This fight is my everything: my soul, my spirit, my mind, my body. Right now I\u2019m not thinking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2881,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/2881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmamag.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}