While Tyson Fury
believes his victory over Francis
Ngannou was well deserved, “The Gypsy King” can’t help but give
his opponent due credit.
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Ngannou was a +800 underdog going into his boxing clash against
Fury in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Oct. 28. The former Ultimate
Fighting Championship heavyweight king took Fury to a hard-fought
decision, even scoring the lone knockdown of the bout in round 3.
However, Ngannou ended up on the short side of a split decision
that a majority of fans and pundits believe should have gone the
other way.
Fury has now admitted that Ngannou gave him the toughest test in
the past 10 years of his career. The WBC champ claims he didn’t
underestimate Ngannou in any way but had a lack of material to
research when it came to the Cameroonian’s boxing.
However, “The Gypsy King” believes he outboxed Ngannou throughout
the fight, barring the third round knockdown.
“No, didn’t underestimate him… We didn’t know how good he was or
how bad he was,” Fury told iFL
TV. “There was no footage of him – I’d never seen the man fight
before as a boxer – and that was it. He was a lot more awkward than
I thought he’d be. … He was an awkward man.
“I don’t take anything away from him. He gave me a better fight
than all the boxers did in the last 10 years. I think that’s been
the toughest fight I’ve had for years – not so much my toughest
fight for years, but maybe he won the 10-8 round, and maybe he won
one other round. But other than that, I was just boxing him and he
couldn’t really close the distance down on me. At points it was
tough, but not so much the other way.
“I’m not a boxing judge, but I can clearly see he didn’t win the
fight by the punch stats. If he would have won the fight, they
would have given it to him. It wasn’t my own show, was it?”