Francis Ngannou vs Tyson Fury – Who Will Benefit?
Ariel Helwani, the leading MMA journalist, has officially confirmed the boxing match between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou. The huge event will take place on October 28th in Saudi Arabia. More details about the bout itself will be revealed later but it is clear that it is happening as everything has been sealed and signed. We will go through everything you need to know about the fight.
Game-changing event
The fans of boxing and mixed martial arts will have a chance to watch this kind of matchup for the first time ever considering the pedigree of the two fighters. ‘Francis Ngannou is arguably the best heavyweight fighter in MMA right now, while Tyson Fury is arguably the best heavyweight boxer on the planet’ said John Pentin, boxing expert of Bettingpicks4you.com.
The whole concept of such a matchup has clear marketing ideas written all over it. The winner of the bout will be declared the very best heavyweight fighter in the world. However, since the match will be held by the rules of boxing, it is clear that Tyson Fury has a massive advantage and will no doubts be the favorite for the win.
Ngannou wanted this a long time ago
Francis Ngannou went public in 2021 revealing his intentions about leaving the UFC. The main reason for the dispute between him and Dana White lay in the permission for the UFC heavyweight champion to organize a boxing match while being a member of UFC. White made it clear that his organization couldn’t make such permission but Francis kept pushing. He was persistent, clearly expressing the desire for participating in a boxing match at least once before retirement.
It is not yet fully clear as to why Dana White was so much against such a proposal because the UFC would certainly get a piece of the cake themselves in case of such a bout. After all, White has already allowed Conor McGregor to fight Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
Ngannou defended his UFC heavyweight title for the last time in early 2022 by beating Cyril Gane. He has not fought since then, leaving the organization in 2023. Many professional fighters, including McGregor himself, considered this a very much wrong move from Ngannou, especially after there was nothing to announce a potential boxing match against a big rival.
Nevertheless, Francis proved them all wrong, setting up this mega-fight against the world heavyweight champion in boxing. The payout will not be small, especially since the fight is taking place in Saudi Arabia. We can only imagine the pay-per-view numbers knowing how popular and dangerous both athletes are.
Is Fury doing the right thing?
We have seen many critics towards Ngannou for being persistent in organizing this fight but Tyson Fury should by all means be blamed more than him. Fury should have fought Oleksandr Usyk for the title of an absolute heavyweight champion of the world earlier this year but the agreement for one of the biggest fights in boxing history fell apart.
The Gypsy King constantly changed his terms for the bout, setting up all sorts of ultimatums along the way. Usyk even accepted the bout despite the 30-70% payrolls in Fury’s favor and despite the fact the Ukrainian owns three of four significant belts. Usyk then decided to fight Daniel Dubois while Fury continued to avoid rivals.
One would thus say that there is no legitimate contender for the fight against the current WBC heavyweight champion. However, this is by no means true because the likes of Andy Ruiz, Filip Hrgovic, and Frank Sanchez are all there to provide a serious threat to the champ. Nevertheless, the Gypsy King just does not have the will to fight either of these athletes. He has completely turned to marketing and he currently only seeks an opportunity to make money and sell more pay-per-views.
Tyson will thus spend two precious years of his career on pointless fights like the one he had last year when he easily defeated Derek Chisora who is currently nowhere near the top of the contenders list. To make things worse, the WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has personally allowed Tyson Fury to proceed with this bout against Francis Ngannou and has no intentions of taking away his belt although Tyson has not defended his crown for a while now.
On the other side, we can’t blame Francis for his strong intentions to organize this match. The Cameroonian has finished his work with the UFC and he has never had a boxing match in his career. He will get the chance to fight the world heavyweight champion on his debut in the sport and make his dream come true along the way. From his point of view, this is a marvelous match.
