From MMA to Boxing: The Unbelievable Rise of Francis Ngannou
Mixed martial arts was created with fraud detection in mind. The main organization in the sport, the U.F.C., was established in 1993 with a championship that pitted a variety of fighters against one another to see which techniques worked best in the real world — or at least in a caged simulation of it. (The U.F.C. rule set, for example, was very unwelcoming to a sumo wrestler.) Fans of M.M.A. continued to post videos of figures like Xu Xiaodong, a Chinese fighter who was renowned for taking on and defeating gurus who professed to have extraordinary abilities, even after several decades had passed. He claimed his opponents were engaging in “fake kung fu,” and by defeating them, he hoped to demonstrate the fallacy of their esoteric theories and techniques.
How Francis Ngannou Shocked the Boxing World 2023.
Is boxing a joke? The sport itself appears to be quite empirical: two competitors punch each other for as long as they can, or for about 30 minutes, and judges decide who hit harder if it’s not immediately apparent. The conventional wisdom thus states that the outcome of a match between a boxer and an M.M.A. fighter is usually predictable: the fighter would prevail in an M.M.A. fight, where kicks and wrestling are permitted (in fact, encouraged), but the boxer would triumph in a boxing match just as easily because M.M.A. fighters are generalists and punching is just one of many skills they must master. Nonetheless, the concept of big crossover bouts appeals to fans, as they can occasionally produce greater excitement than standard championships in either sport.
Thus, a lot of fans found themselves tuning into a peculiar event on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury, who is frequently regarded as the world champion, was taking on Francis Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion, who was making his boxing debut. It appeared to be a mismatch, or at least a mis-something: prior to the fight, boxing journalist Dan Rafael claimed that the promoters had refused to clarify whether this was an official competition or merely a fun exhibition, similar to the 2021 bout between social media sensation Logan Paul and boxing virtuoso Floyd Mayweather, which was called off without a decision.
Not everyone was thrilled about the fight. Veteran fight reporter Kevin Iole of Yahoo wrote a piece titled “Tyson Fury, Francis Ngannou Boxing Match Little More Than a Fraud Upon the Paying Public,” mocking the fighters’ claims that the winner would be named “the baddest man on the planet.” Iole wrote, “There is no chance this match will decide that.” Despite this, the fighters themselves had valid reasons for being excited.
Via a representative, Ngannou proposed that he would make more money by facing Fury than he had from all fourteen of his UFC fights put together. Furthermore, Fury appeared happy with his salary and the welcoming environment he was experiencing in Saudi Arabia, despite having only competed twice in the previous two years (against uninteresting opponents). He once questioned, “What has the government ever done, special treatment for the Gypsy King?” in reference to his upbringing in his native England, where his parents were Irish travelers.
Are they even faster than anyone else at getting me through customs at Heathrow Airport? Or should I stand in line for two hours? In Riyadh, apparently, life was better. He declared, “This is special treatment for the big G.K., all day, every day.” He paid his respects to Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as Turki Al Sheikh, who oversees the government’s entertainment division. Although Saudi Arabia’s investment in golf has generated a lot of controversy, boxing is not the same.
The event that was once known as Zaire, Muhammad Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle, celebrated its 49th anniversary this past weekend. It’s common knowledge that fighters, regardless of their source, rarely decline large checks or “special treatment.”
The organizers spent a lot of money on a lavish trailer in the style of Hollywood movies and transformed the weekend into a combat convention in order to give the impression that this was more than just a stunt. What must have been one of the most impressive lineups of fighters ever assembled was captured in a group photo: Mike Tyson, who claimed to be assisting Ngannou in his training, Israel Adesanya, Chuck Liddell, and Manny Pacquiao, among many others. Even though most boxing insiders disagreed, the presence of Eminem, Kanye West, and Cristiano Ronaldo reinforced the sense that this would be a historic fight that was well worth the price (seventy-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents on pay-per-view).
Rafael stated on his podcast, “I find it difficult to see anything other than Tyson Fury winning by a clear, simple margin.” It seemed “unlikely to be a competitive fight,” in my opinion as well. In order to crown an undisputed heavyweight champion, serious boxing fans were already anticipating Fury’s upcoming fight, which is set for December 23rd against Oleksandr Usyk, a very talented (though diminutive) heavyweight boxer from Ukraine. The game on Saturday against the inexperienced Ngannou would primarily be a showy warm-up.
Fury was going to use his long, tangling jab, it seemed, to keep Ngannou from approaching him at all. However, from the beginning, Fury failed to land enough punches to deter Ngannou, who occasionally connected and made Fury retreat. It didn’t really matter that some of Ngannou’s punches appeared a little wide or clumsy — in the third round, for example, Ngannou swung a left hook over Fury’s right shoulder, sending him onto the canvas and onto his backside. “Well, he surprises him!” The play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore let out a howl. It was shocking enough that Fury had not been knocked out, but he had been knocked over. “The heavyweight champion has just been knocked out by Francis Ngannou! Anything is possible. It simply did.
Using his fingers on his forehead, Usyk gestured mock alarm — or perhaps it was the real thing — to the cameras as he stood ringside. In an interview the following day, Usyk said, speaking through an interpreter, “I was a little bit nervous that our possible fight is in jeopardy.” “I even began to yell at him, telling him to use his jab and to jab him faster.” Whether Fury heard this counsel or not, he didn’t appear to follow it:
Fury threw an average of slightly over 14.5 jabs per round in the first three rounds and slightly under 13.5 in the final seven, according to punch-counting service CompuBox. Fury was still awarded five, six, or seven rounds (out of ten) on each judge’s scorecard, deducting one extra point from Fury for the knockdown, according to CompuBox’s computation that showed Fury outlanded Ngannou in six of the ten rounds. The outcome was a one-point split decision, giving Fury the narrowest victory margin imaginable. This was both a better result than many viewers felt he deserved and a far worse one for him than most had anticipated. How did it take place?
The easiest way to put it is this: Ngannou seemed to demonstrate that physical prowess and a few months of training are all that are necessary to compete credibly, at the highest level, while enthusiasts and practitioners are fixated on the minute details of technique, muscle memory, and endless hours in the gym. Over the past few years, amateurs have successfully competed against professional boxers on multiple occasions. In 2017, Mayweather faced competition from Conor McGregor, another M.M.A. star, although Mayweather subsequently stated that he was too soft on McGregor.
Additionally, Jake Paul, Logan Paul’s brother and a social media celebrity, has built an unexpectedly serious boxing career despite just losing his debut match to Tommy, Tyson Fury’s half-brother. Even so, Fury’s performance on Saturday left many stunned, and even those who weren’t prepared to accept that boxing is a joke might have wondered if heavyweight boxing is a joke. Even though Fury is unbeaten, he gained notoriety by outclassing the aging champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 and by winning three fights against the inconsistent but deadly Deontay Wilder.
Perhaps Fury’s lackluster performance in the modern heavyweight division is the reason he was never that great. Surely the great welterweight Terence Crawford would have no trouble going up against the devastating UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in a hypothetical boxing match? Boxing fans shouldn’t be as certain after Saturday night as they formerly would have been.
However, one must also acknowledge that Ngannou was somewhat of an underdog in M.M.A. in order to comprehend what he did to the boxing world over the weekend. Born in Cameroon, he spent his early years working in the sand mines before moving to Paris to start serious training. At the age of 27, he participated in his first M.M.A. bout in 2013. It was his U.F.C.
After winning the heavyweight title in 2021, he faced an extremely formidable foe in the U.F.C., which he claimed wasn’t treating him properly or paying him enough. When he left the organization earlier this year, many questioned how his career would endure given that he was an elderly fighter who had suffered a knee injury during preparation for his last UFC match and was cut off from the most significant organization in his sport. He had no assurance that he would ever get the opportunity to fight the heavyweight champion of boxing, much less defeat him.
After the fight, Fury acknowledged Ngannou’s performance, stating, “He was a lot better than we thought he’d be,” but he insisted that he was still ready to take on Usyk. Maybe Fury will train harder, box better, and approach the fight with more seriousness than he did previously. He might even look like the dominant champion he once seemed to be. Despite the fact that Ngannou lost so convincingly and closely, and made boxing fans and UFC executives look foolish, he was deemed the night’s undisputed hero, with the potential to fight in two different sports in the future. Or, at least officially speaking, he is not a boxing champion. It seems, though, that he has a strong case to be called the baddest man alive.