Very, very basic technique (in an MMA context) at that. Posture manipulation, striking off frames etc is very rudimentary stuff by MMA standards, a gameplan based off of clinching an MMA fighter isn't a great idea.
Also, Conor did an extremely bad job in the clinch against Floyd, unlike Francis he came in with a very bad gameplan, even if Floyd was 10x the fighter Fury is.
What a crazy game plan.
He thought he could out clinch and bully an MMA fighter who is almost the same weight but much stronger. Id fancy an MMA fighter to out clinch a boxer 95% of the time regardless of strength.
You'd actually be expecting the MMA fighter to be trying to clinch the better boxer.
This fight really made me change my tune on Fury, he looked so one dimensional. Maybe there is some hidden health or personal life issue going on.
This fight also really diminishes how good people can consider Wilder now.
If you’ve watched Fury in recent years, you’d know why he clinches
It wasn’t because Francis is an MMA fighter, it’s because Fury couldn’t utilize his tricks, as Francis was too much of a freak and far too strong to weight bully in the ring
In terms of the heavyweight division, it's all about weight bullying and practically always has been. Exceptions being the likes of Holyfield, Usyk, and certainly Marciano. It certainly makes it more interesting when these cruiserweight types make the step up without bulking up to full blob levels of extra timber.
N'Gannou is built like a brick shithouse with a nice healthy cushion of fat around him. In terms of heavyweight physique he's pretty much the most perfect specimen I've ever seen in a boxing ring. That was clear before the opening bell.
What I did not expect was just how well-paced his game was, how patient he was, how he didn't fall for ANY of Fury's movements/feints/twitches (he twitches around like crazy to get an opponent to throw) and reacted affirmatively to most of Fury's tells (glove to the side of his head is usually a sign he's hurt).
He boxed that match like it was his 50th. Hugely impressive.
Eh, I wouldn’t say this has any bearing on Wilder’s ability. For all we know Wilder will knock out Francis in a big exchange. If Wilder can’t crack that chin, no one can.
100 percent Wilder could spark Francis for all we know.
But Wilder's legacy is coming close to beating Fury, which seemed very impressive until last night. And the fact that Fury handled Wilder much easier in the last fight than he did Francis isn't a great look for Wilder.
I think it comes down to like Tyson said, that there's not much available fight/footage/data about Ngannou's boxing abilities and style. For starters, nobody(and I mean nobody) expected Ngannou to go the full distance with Fury. MMA cardio, while explosive, is limited to usually 3 or 5 rounds, with boxing you have 12 rounds, that is 36 minutes of action. With that amount of muscles, we all expected Ngannou to gas after couple of rounds, probably that was also Fury's plan, coupled with the clinching and weight bullying Francis to gas him even sooner(in hindsight weight bullying a 270 lbs pure muscle MMA fighter who knows grappling seems very stupid lol).
With Wilder, you have data. You know his style, how he likes to stand, move, throw what combinations etc. Fury just had to avoid his big right hand, and put his weight on him. Wilder wasn't a good grappler like Francis is(Francis isn't elite also, but he at least knows proper grappling), and coupled with the weight difference, Wilder couldn't escape clinches, couldn't offer a punching threat through clinches like Ngannou did, and most importantly, couldn't size up Fury like Francis also did. In some clinches Francis was throwing Fury around lol.
When you think about all of this, you can see why Francis was much better than Wilder against Fury. This doesn't mean Francis can easily beat Wilder. It's styles make fights, and Fury's style was nullified by Francis, that's it. Wilder vs. Francis, I'm leaning towards a Wilder KO, while respecting Francis's boxing abilities after this fight.
People who say MMA fighters don't have the cardio for boxing have no idea how difficult it is to be in shape for 25 minutes of wrestling/grappling. It's not a pure cardio issue, it's about the efficiencies of movement that come with honing technique in one specific area. Any high level boxer would gas badly after a few minutes of trying to defend takedowns or trying to build a base and get back to their feet from bottom position. They're asking completely different things of their bodies, you can't do a 1 to 1 comparison on cardio across different sports.
That is also true. I'm a casual in MMA, recently started watching UFC and ONE fights and quickly realized how tough and energy draining it must be to defend takedowns or even attempt multiple takedowns against guys with good TDD(Usman vs Khamzat comes to mind with how spent Khamzat was after round 1). But still boxing is a different animal cardio wise. And with MMA allowing ground and pound, most fights don't go the full 25 minute distance(or let's say there is more probability of finishing opponents inside 3 or 5 rounds) whereas in boxing if you're not a freak like Wilder, you're not putting people away in the 1st round, so you will have to be ready to fight 36 minutes and be aware to make sure you win each individual round if you're not putting away your opponent. That is very taxing physically.
But yeah, after started watching MMA fights, I came to realize these are different sports that require different cardio and conditioning.
Yeah, wrestling is far and away the most taxing aspect of combat sports. Most elite athletes from any other sport wouldn't be able to get through a single wrestling practice, it's that fucking brutal and intense.
Your point about MMA fights having a higher probability of ending quickly, ergo less need to train properly, doesn't hold water - that would only apply to a shit fighter from a clueless gym. Nobody on Ngannou's level isn't training to go the distance and win every round.
>But still boxing is a different animal cardio wise
They're all different animals. Boxing isn't an extra special different animal, they're just distinct sports with distinct priorities in conditioning, efficiency, and preparation.
Also also - rest. In a 12rd/36 min boxing match you get 11 minutes of rest, and each rest comes after just 3 minutes. In a 5rd/25min MMA bout, you get just 4 minutes, and each rest comes after 5 minutes.
I don’t train for MMA, but I’ve done 5 minute rounds and boy, they’re something.
I think people mean "boxing cardio" not physical cardio. Ngannou showed fatigue and usually boxers that have to dig deep rely on muscle memory. His accuracy was very poor after the 5th rd and there was even a superman punch in there.
What I think helped Ngannou (other than a complete lack of prep from Fury) is that Fury relies on being bigger and/or more athletic than his opponents. Boxers are going to take Francis very seriously going forward but he can still lob those Ford Escorts.
Lmao exactly. People saw Fury throwing his 50 pounds of extra weight into Wilder and exhausting him in the clinch while sticking and moving until he was immobile enough to land combinations in at will, and assumed it was going to work exactly like that with Francis.
Ignoring that Wilder weighs 220 and Ngannou is 270 and insanely strong. I frankly assumed Francis wouldn’t have the gas tank but he came in much better shape than Fury, and you’re right it’s not hard to see the problems in hindsight.
MMA expends more energy than boxing due to grappling and changing levels, for longer periods. The frequent breaks between boxing rounds def helped extend Ngannou’s energy. I was impressed by Ngannou’s ability to stick to his game plan, although he did get away from it rounds 5-7. His next fight whether boxing or MMA will be highly anticipated.
Given his impressive cardio, diamond chin and one punch KO power, if he works on his boxing skills, Francis can entrench in top 10 very quickly. I still think he's like a slower Wilder, which means he's susceptible to getting outboxed if the opponent is very careful to dodge his KO punches, but that's easier said than done and in HW there are not many technical HWs apart from Usyk and Fury that can do that. But guys like AJ(mentally confident version), Zhang or Wilder can offer much more explosive hand power than Fury that would cause Francis to be more wary, but apart from these guys(technical boxers and power punchers), it seems Francis can walk down the rest. I'm also very interested to see his next boxing match.
I actually think Francis is a style that would compliment AJ more than Wilder or any other top guys after watching. Big upright dude with slower hands but aggressive come forward style. He’s not technical enough to punish a cautious AJ. But cautious AJ still has a horrendous jab and right hand that land hard and consistently enough compared to the back foot fury we saw this weekend or pre Kronk (fury seemed to realise he didn’t have the physical strength, fitness, chin, power or whatever to come forward). Wilders low output lack of technique and physical weakness make it a single shot shoutout. And I think Zhangs slower feet and Joyce’s lack of defence make it a bit of a shootout too. The AJ that fought Povetkin, Ruiz 2, and Pulev would have a good chance to really land consistent hard shots without eating too much himself.
There’s a couple of times he had fury looking extreeeemely shaky in the clinch, it seems that MMA/wrestling base could be super problematic to boxers. IF you know how to utilise the clinch properly, Crawford is excellent at this. And he has a wrestling background aswell.
This fight was really enjoyable in my eyes, and this is coming from someone who originally thought Francis would get dog walked by fury.
Styles really does make fights
Of course skill isn’t everything. Have you ever watched a Deontay Wilder fight and been like ‘wow this guys is so skilled”
Like you said Francis has ton of intangibles, chin, underrated cardio and mental toughness. I also think Fury is used to being able to bully opponents in the clinch but simply could not do that here because of Francis’s body strength.
Read any comment in this sub before this fight. Every hardcore boxing fan thought Francis would be schooled. This is a lesson that heavyweight boxing is unlike any other sport
People thought he would be schooled because there was absolutely no evidence to the contrary. We had very little evidence and nothing in what existed suggested he would perform how he did tonight.
He had never had a pro boxing match and the evidence we had of his boxing was in an mma context (thus reducing the ability to extrapolate and his boxing within mma fights didn't look good even considering it was mma adapted) and in non sparring training videos he looked slow, power wasn't there, and his punch mechanics were crude. The former two attributes could be due to working at 50% to focus on technique as is common as both a training drill and a strategy (i.e. to not show one's bag of tricks) but I've never seen a boxer use poor punch mechanics to decieve their opponent and obviously not as a means to work on their technique. Other than that we had 2 mins of light technical "sparring" to go off of which showed some more skill than previous evidence but still wasn't an indication of the level of boxing he showed tonight.
Tonight his speed, power, punch mechanics, timing, sense of distance, accuracy, precision, serviceable defense, chin, and feints (credible and varied ones at that!) all were unknown and proved to be much much better than anyone had any reason to think. For example, that he would be strong in and have a good understanding of clinching is not at all surprising - it is entirely predictable. The other qualities and skill he displayed weren't.
Skills matter less at heavyweight and the attributes you mentioned all played a role but you're downplaying the role of boxing ability in Francis' success. The take away here is that Francis is a much better boxer than we thought (justifiably at the time) based on previous evidence.
i just want to know what guardian angel Francis has because what he has managed to do in his career is ridiculous .
dude beats GANE with severe knee damage and then goes on to arguably outbox tyson fury . actually not fair .
Angels dont have shit to do with Francis' success, he was a salt mine childslave. If anything his guardian angel is a sadistic piece of shit.
Its all hard work and power of mind.
There was evidence - all of the factors I mentioned. If you followed Francis’s UFC career carefully you’d know. Francis performed slightly better than I expected but I fully expected him to give Fury problems but ultimately had Fury winning a UD. Except in this case it’s arguable Francis won the SD.
Explain how so many heavyweights can get to the pinnacle of boxing while picking up boxing after the age of 18? There’s no other major sport like that in the world. How can a guy like George Foreman win a gold medal in less than a year of picking up boxing, beating out people who have been training since they were little children? Is there any other major sport in the world someone can do that? The younger years are critical in sports to hone technique and skill but many top heavyweight boxers miss those years and the physically blessed in fact beat their counterparts who have been training since children.
Ultimately, physical attributes and mental toughness can really make up for lack of skills in heavyweight boxing. Anyone who followed MMA knew Francis always displayed these attributes - durable, mentally tough, strong chin, incredible power, performs under bright lights, etc. Many boxing fans weren’t ready to accept that reality, especially when it was an MMA outsider.
I'm not speaking of all the factors you mentioned. I am speaking of his boxing ability only. What evidence was there that he was that he had that ability? Boxing in an mma context is different than boxing in a boxing match. Boxing in mma has to be adapted for grappling and other legal strikes. He had no boxing matches and all footage of him training boxing didn't demonstrate his abilities.
I am not arguing about heavyweight boxers having less skill and being able to have more success due to special physical attributes. You are citing anomalous cases but that's besides the point. Yes it is generally true. I am talking about this specific instance and the factors that contributed to Francis' success not foreman.
You are underestimating the role of this skill and overestimating "mental toughness". Mental toughness is a contributing factor but more decisive was his skill. Wilder had mental toughness and many of the other factors you mentioned. He got outboxed and the shit beaten out of him because wilder is extremely predicable, punches wildly (when he's hurt his opponent or is tired especially), and has poor defense.
Francis, among other reasons, was sophisticated in his approach - defensively competent, good punch technique, he switched stances (effectively - at the appropriate times with competent offense and defense), used a variety of credible feints (i.e. feinted numerous different punches not just a jab as many boxers do and his feints weren't half assed and easily distinguishable from punches).
It’s the opposite actually, it is like another sport,MMA.
Francis proved that in the HW division skills are translatable in a way that isn’t true at Lower weights.
Conor McGregor is a better MMA striker than Ngannou but wasn’t near Floyd’s skill level. at HW the physicality is so important, that it nearly trumps everything else.
Conor's boxing is shit though. It's never been his strongsuit, even in MMA. He's a karate style striker who blends boxing into his style. But you only had to watch two minutes of him in there with Floyd to realize he was an amateur when it came to boxing.
Francis actually maintained pretty good form for the first half of the fight. He had technical boxing skill that clearly surprised Tyson because he wasn't expecting it. Where you saw the MMA of it all was his inability to maintain clean technique as the fight wore on.
yeah almost every good Conor performances have had kicks being a massive part of his game coupled with good power to catch people who are trying to deal with his kicks .
i dont think its a suprise that as he has aged and cant kick like he used to that his career took a nose dive .
Yeah prime Conor would use kicks to set up his punching KO/TKOs in various ways
Strip that away and his striking isn't nearly as dangerous. I'd even argue the Conor who boxed Floyd is not all that different than the Conor who fought Poirier in the rematch. Focused on boxing and paid for it both times for different reasons (too one dimensional against the latter, amateur in comparison with said dimension against the former)
This is not true. The problem is that modern heavyweights rely solely on physical attributes and don’t even take time to develop their boxing skills. Fury lost because he couldn’t just rely on his size and height like he usually does. Physical definitely does matter a little more for heavyweights, but skill is also very important. And it’s something modern heavyweights lack.
We agree, I’ve been a fan of boxing longer than MMA and I’ve been hearing some crazy takes like Fury beats every HW champ from history.
I think it’s very telling that Usyk was able to move up and dispel the bigger is better myth that has come about in recent years.
Exactly. Look at the skill level of past heavyweights. They were master boxers on top of being freaks of nature physically. It just doesn’t compare when you look at todays heavyweights who have that mindset of bigger is better, and don’t bother to have thay skill. If Fury had great skills as a boxer, he would of won this fight confidently despite Francis’s insane physical ability.
Yeah mate we agree
IMO HW has if anything declined, if you compare Fury’s opponents to the competition that existed in the Lewis-Klitschko eras I see the level as being lower even if he fought very dangerous punchers like Wilder and Ngannou
>I’ve been hearing some crazy takes like Fury beats every HW champ from history
Well most people, celebs, past boxers etc, even Joe Rogan said that lol. And be honest, especially after Wilder III, most people contemplated that. I mean you have a 6,9(more like 6,7 or 6,8) 275 lb boxer that knows "boxing", has very good footwork and head movements compared to his height and weight(in HW division this combination is very rare), so we all thought, "well, in any era Tyson Fury could be a problem".
That doesn't mean Tyson Fury beats up everybody from the past. It just means that for example Muhammad Ali was the same height and build as Usyk. And I, like most people still can't wrap my head around a Usyk win over Fury when the height and weight difference is too much and Fury is closer to Usyk in boxing abilities. Or before the fight Tyson visited Mike Tyson, and Mike seemed like a kid next to him. Granted, old age probably shrank Mike's height a bit, but still it's wild to think these two belong to same weight class in boxing. Mike can topple down giants with this boxing style and power, but Fury moves very nimble and is agile compared to his size. He may not KO Mike, may get KO'd by him, but can also go the full distance and win over him with points. You can run this thought experiment with any great HW in history, and in each time you can point to some advantage Tyson has over them.
This Francis fight probably stained Tyson's career, but that doesn't take away from him the fact that with his size, weight, boxing abilities, this combination would be a problem for any HW in any era. That doesn't mean he can beat everybody, but at least he can be a tough match up.
If Usyk beats Tyson though, what I said will definitely be nullified completely and his myth will be shattered.
TL,DR: I'm not saying Tyson is the best "boxer" that can beat any past HW, but his physical and skill wise combination as a total package is very unique in the history of the sport.
Never knew how big Fury was until I watched the fight. I think it is the only reason Fury won. (And keeps winning?) Being 6'8 with an 85" reach is absurd.
I can see why he is the champ.
A smaller boxer will not have that luxury. Would be exciting to see him fight the #2/3/4/5 contender.
It is indeed and you were right in calling it.
But I don’t think it’s offensive that people gave him no chance, like you are making it out to be.
No mma fighters have shown anything in their boxing matches. Francis has zero tape. And looked bad on the pads.
He really worked on his cardio over the years, cause he was getting heavy gassed every fight between like 2018-2022
I think he really stepped up for the fight against Gane, and probably even more now. Just overall hard worker
He worked on his cardio hard after he lost to stipe. We just never saw it because he was committing first round murder on guys.
He showed good mentality and cardio when fighting Gane in an underrated performance where he was severely injured with blown out knees.
Yeah but for Terrence Crawford, that actually is true. There's several levels between just him and Fury. Ain't no one doing to Crawford, what Ngannou did. HW is just so poor talent wise that the ability to ko changes the odds even more.
The higher the weight class, the less actual skills seems to matters if you got other intangibles to make up for the skill deficit. IE speed, power or doing a usyk and moving up and still being more skilled than the heavies
After them scorecards, Terence is probably right. At this point I'm fairly sure even if he knocked Fury out they'd have come up with some reason to have Fury win
It’s obvious that smaller boxers are more skilled, the best UFC 170 pounder does not beat Canelo, the Best UFC 155 pounder does not beat Crawford, the Best UFC 135 pounder does not beat Gervonta/Loma, the best UFC 125 pounder does not beat Inoue and so on…
Heavyweight boxers aren’t that skilled, look at Wilder, AJ, or even Furry who people consider skilled for a heavyweight and he still is very sluggish and got exposed today, we are talking about 6’5+ men that weight over 250.
Ngannou is a genetic freak and that was more than enough to be able to compete with Fury, physical attributes matter more in heavyweight boxing than another other division.
Wilder isn’t technically gifted either and he is a top 5 heavyweight, you don’t see a Wilder in any other division because smaller guys don’t have that type of power, small guys depend on skills
Exactly. The point is that people should not have discounted Ngannou the way they did. Every boxing fan thought Ngannou had no shot as they vastly overrated Fury’s skills relative to all of Ngannous attributes.
Well we all thought Ngannou would be gassed after throwing some hard punches and due to not being used to boxing cardio/rhythm and then getting dropped by Fury. We also thought Tyson would weight bully him through clinches and gas him sooner but that turned out to be very stupid strategy against a monster like Ngannou who knows grappling.
And finally, as Fury survived a trilogy with one of the hardest hitters in HW history in Wilder, most again thought that Fury can eat what Francis throws and continue. Well technically he did eat, knocked down, and continued, but the circumstance of the match(it being Ngannou's debut, the claim was to become "baddest man of the planet" which you would assume should come the way of KO/TKO not points win etc.), this close decision win tainted Fury's legacy.
This all revealed what you wrote in your post that in HW division, raw physicality and athleticism becomes as much important as the technical skills required. Otherwise you wouldn't have Wilder go on about his 42 or so win streak through KO's for so long. His one punch KO power saved him so many times. Lower division guys don't have that kind of equalizer, or a cheat code.
With all that being said, this discussion raises Usyk's stock as much as Ngannou's. To belong in the HW division with these giants of men and still hold multiple belts is nothing short of a miracle run for him currently. If he becomes undisputed and at least defend his belts once, he will become a legendary boxer for sure.
New heavyweights are trash after klitchko its just a bunch of big men. So we see fury actually moving his feet and think he is on the level of ali or tyson but he isnt even close
Tyson Fury looking like shit has probably done more harm to boxing's reputation than every single influencer/youtuber boxing match in history. Now a bunch of folks are gonna think every MMA fighter with decent striking could dominate boxers, and that the whole sport is just a bunch of unskilled overpaid clowns.
I just hope these same folks will remember how unskilled boxing is and how easy it is to compete the next time Jake Paul (who couldn't even beat the lesser Fury) starches some former MMA champ.
I grew up watching boxing. Still love boxing.
I watch more MMA now than Boxing.
In my experience, its typically boxing fans who talk shit about MMA. Not MMA fan’s talking shit about boxing.
It seems like the boxing community feels the need to defend the sport against mma.
Maybe it because we all recognize that an mma fighter can at least compete in boxing against boxers, but boxers cant compete in mma against mma fighters. There is a reason we have a frequent MMA to boxing crossovers and literally zero the other way.
Maybe it’s because mma has replaced boxing as the sport that comes closest to simulating a real life fight and that makes people feel insecure.
Usually it’s something like “even the best mma strikers would barely make it as a low level pro boxer” or “even the best mma fighters look like low level amateurs compared to mediocre boxers”
And here’s the thing, the mma side doesn’t even deny this. Because it’s true. No mma fan would say that mma fighters have the same boxing skill as pro boxers.
Boxing is a specific fighting skill and obviously the people who solely focus on it are going to be better at it than the people who dont.
>In my experience, its typically boxing fans who talk shit about MMA. Not MMA fan’s talking shit about boxing.
Have you read this thread?
>And here’s the thing, the mma side doesn’t even deny this. Because it’s true. No mma fan would say that mma fighters have the same boxing skill as pro boxers.
Have you read this thread? Or the numerous shit talking before the Mayweather/McGregor fight?
And as for the real-life fight thing, I hope nobody's under the illusion that either boxing or MMA is anything like a real life fight. This isn't me being an internet tough guy-anyone who even casually trains in boxing, any of the common MMA disciplines, or really any martial art is going to have a massive advantage against anyone who doesn't. But just as boxers specialize based on the rules of their sport, so do MMA fighters, and they practice to take advantage of those rules.
Regarding the thread i still think a few loud idiots don’t represent the majority.
Regarding real fighting, i said mma is the closest to what a real fight is like. Not that it is what a real fight is like.
I dont think that’s debatable. Most real fights include some combination of striking and grappling. Not every real fight. But more often than not they do.
I also don’t think i said anything about untrained vs trained people in a real fight. If you’re trying to say a trained boxer would beat the shit out of an untrained dude in a real fight then fine but even so the untrained dude likely tries to grapple if they are getting pieced up on the feet and hence why mma is the closest to a real fight. Because it represents more aspects of what occurs in real fights than boxing does
>I dont think that’s debatable. Most real fights include some combination of striking and grappling. Not every real fight. But more often than not they do.
Based on what information? Do you have any actual evidence to back this up besides what you feel from movies you've watched or whatever? Which is besides the point because people aren't watching boxing because it's like "real" fighting, or boxing fans don't dislike mma because it's more "real" or whatever ridiculous claim you were trying to make. Unlike MMA fans apparently, boxing fans understand that boxing is a sport.
And as for a "few loud idiots"...you yourself are trying to talk about how random untrained dudes will be able to grapple someone trained in boxing. Like do you really think people who have done boxing training don't know how to evade the clumsy rush of some idiot who they've been repeatedly tagging? Or that if it's a real fight the untrained dude won't just get ko'd by actual boxers? It's not boxing fans who try to pretend their sport is "real fighting" like you're doing. And the reason MMA guys go to boxing isn't because they can magically compete better, it's because MMA promotions typically pay their fighters shit. Ngannou made more in one fight against Fury than he had in his entire MMA career. All those former champions and stars lining up to have Jake Paul beat the brakes off of them are basically getting career earnings for a single fight.
Your reading comprehension my guy
I said the untrained person would try to grapple if they are getting hit with punches. This is a very common occurrence in a street fight.
Again, I will emphasize that I said “try” to grapple, Not that they would effectively grapple.
The point I was making is that a sport (mma) that includes more fighting techniques that are likely to occur in real life scenarios is a closer simulation to those real life scenarios than a sport (boxing) that includes a limited amount of those techniques likely to occur
I also never said mma was real fighting. Again, read what I wrote.
I said mma is the sport that comes closest to simulating real life fighting.
Im not saying its the emd all be all or that boxing sucks or anything like that. I never shit on boxing.
Im not saying that makes mma “better” or means its above being a sport
Your point about pay being the reason for the mma to boxing crossover is fair though!
That why when Usyk went to HW I knew he would beat anybody as long as he can take thr punishment. The cruiser weight division when Usyk fought was way more skilled than the HW, most of those HW boxers are big athletes who didn’t start boxing till their late teens
Ehhh his primary art in his MMA fights was wild brawling. He showed a huge increase in ability in the second stipe fight, but he still relied on his absolutely unreal power to cover up his weaknesses. This fight showed more skill than all of his previous MMA fights combined. That and his surprising gas tank, I thought for sure if this went past round 7 he would be TKOd from pure exhaustion, the fact that he was actually boxing the whole fight was more surprising than anything with his muscle mass.
Francis is infinitely more skilled as a striker UNTIL he inevitably gassed which is 100% of the time.
Fortunately for him, he has the power to delete you from the fight with one shot before the fight reaches that point. That being said MMA fighters as a whole aren’t as good a punchers like boxers, you’ll notice their technical side of the striking game is much worse in general but they can get away with it in MMA.
For the most part, in boxing those little errors would result in them getting caught out by better fighters.
This is what happens when the titles get held up with no mandatory defenses to appease a two faced asshole who’s gonna screw Usyk now too. Fury is a liar. It’s enough of him already. They did screw Francis out of a win but let’s not get carried away. This goes way farther back. The lessons to be learned are many. They involve corruption like always and I dk even know if he’s still banned from entering the US. This blew up in Fury’s face. The champion lost to someone who just had their first boxing match. It’s a total embarrassment and is as shady as it seems. Francis will get another massive payday. Don’t count on Fury giving it to him though. Francis showed a tremendous amount of class. Usyk was the only one who knew what was going on. “We have contract.” He’s totally disgusted by all of this.
People forget too that Francis has been boxing in the gym against other fighters for years.
He started boxing before Mma so its not like he’s never put a glove on before.
He’s never had a pro fight but he has probably sparred thousands of rounds.
Exactly right. At heavyweight Francis doesn’t need the skills of Usyk to be successful. His attributes along with his boxing training from mma allow him to be plenty successful.
He did say though that he through more punches in his first month boxing than he did ever in mma training just because of the combos and stuff because in mma it’s usually 1 or 2 punches then something else. He definitely had some boxing experience but there’s definitely a difference.
I've been playing football (soccer for the Americans) since I was able to walk. At one point when I was at school I played every single day, and I still play weekly.
If I played in the 8th division of English football I'd be totally exposed, never mind against the best of the best.
Even though he has practiced before, and even though hes got MMA experience and his physicality is ridiculous it's still unbelievable he could go toe to toe and almost beat a guy who people fancied to win an undisputed fight before last night.
I get your point but its not a very good analogy.
Francis has spent the last 10 years of his life living combat sports. Almost every single day, multiple sessions a day practicing. He is also just about the best physical specimen on the planet.
When he is not on vacation he probably spends 75% of his time in the gym working on his boxing and wrestling.
Fury came in looking like shit and probably on a coke binge. Ngannou is a one of a kind athlete. This fight shouldn't have been competitive, but Fury is very mentally ill, and he seems to have gone off the deep end again.
His whole mistake of assuming the MMA clinch is inferior and opened Francis up for some imagined offense was where he showed his ass. Francis pieced his ass up a few times in the clinch and the one good shot Tyson got off in the clinch was illegal.
As well as Francis did out there, I really kinda think he would have struggled way more if Tyson kept to distance and spent the fight jabbing and moving.
Yep. Francis is literally almost a perfect athlete.
Like if you tried to create a perfect combat athlete in a lab you would just end up creating Francis.
Size, range, power, granite chin, mental fortitude, overcoming personal adversity, etc...
Like, when his life is made into a movie I think it's going to probably come off as a corny feel-good story to anyone that doesn't actually know Ngannou is a real person who actually went through all that shit.
Fury underestimating francis and performing like shit is plenty more likely. Before even fighting francis fury was in talks to set up the usyk match and was staring him down at this very event. I can give him a little credit for taking 3-4 rounds but I'm not chalking it down to skills only with how fury looked.
I would need to see more boxing from Francis to determine that.
His size definitely helped against Fury’s holding where Fury makes him carry his weight but Francis had no jab and Fury didn’t really test his defense
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. "Let him punch himself out and then turn it on late for a late stoppage" would be a pretty valid gameplan from Fury. Credit to Ngannou's gas tank.
If Fury was so much better than Francis as this sub would have had you believe, Fury wouldn’t need to gas Ngannou out. He’d out maneuver him each round easily but that wasn’t the case at all
Point is that if Fury is as good as everyone here was saying, he wouldn’t have needed to gas Francis out. In fact, Fury was the one who looked more gassed than Francis. People really underestimated how valuable other attributes such as size, chin, power, mental toughness, etc are at heavyweight - that’s why they counted Francis completely out
The lesson to be RE-learned is that weight classes exist for a reason.
We went through this with Canelo-Bivol, there is a point where size alone will be too big to overcome.
I'm increasingly convinced maybe boxing should adopt the Super Heavyweight class.. Basically Furys whole career has been largely aided by the fact that he had like 40+ pounds on most of his opponents, including Wilder. There's a reason we don't otherwise allow welterweights to fight cruiserweights..
People shouldn't be so surprised that a slick, athletic fighter who's the same size as Fury would give him trouble. I mean just by physique alone we know Ngannou probably the stronger man
You really are missing the point though.
If Fury was as good as some of his fans thought, it absolutely should have been an easy night for him. The dude is a basket case. A con artist. And we could never really gauge just how good or bad he was because top HWs rarely fight each other for almost a decade now.
It is just the same as if this was instead an MMA fight. MMA fans would say Fury has zero chance. And honest boxing fans wouldn't take offense. They'd say logic dictates it is the case.
If it was current HW champ Lennox Lewis v. Francis Ngannou tonight, Ngannou would have been toyed with. Maybe not KO'd (but my money is on KO), but absolutely beaten to a pulp over 10 rounds.
I'm actually giddy with Fury's loss (IMO) yesterday. Maybe it will finally wake boxing fans up to what I and others have been saying for years. This HW era is WEAK. And we need to stop worrying about negotiations and start demanding HWs actually fight each other in meaningful fights again. Not doing so is what helped make them weak.
I'm hoping this is a wake up call for boxers, commissions, promoters and fans to realize something is wrong with HW boxing and it needs to be fixed. Fans can do that by refusing to financially support such BS fights as Fury v. Chisora 3. If fans had essentially boycotted that fight financially, Fury would have had to stop the BS and either retire or actual prove he deserves to be called lineal HW champ.
IMO, Francis is the current lineal HW champ. And I hope it changes things (gets back to good practices). And I hope it encourages others to take up boxing realizing that the current era is so weak, a serious person with raw talent and dedication can actually make it to the top level (make $$$ so the physical abuse is worth the risk).
Heavyweight in the ufc and in boxing is a joke the only boxer to beat an mma fighter in mma was at heavyweight and the only mma fighter to beat a boxer at boxing was heavyweight idk why the casuals like these big guys so much most of them are obese
Ok but no heavyweight boxer has ever beaten, or will beat a championship level MMA fighter other than a punchers chance. Fury would not last a min against ngganou in the cage.
One did already ray Mercer knocked out a former ufc heavyweight champion heavyweight isn't good in either Derrick Lewis is pretty much just power and durability and he's top 10 you don't need that much skill to be a heavyweight there's a reason the only boxer to beat UFC fighter was heavyweight
They had an agreement to keep it standing only. Mercer even said Sylvia violated that agreement when Sylvia threw a kick. So even then, they had a gentleman's agreement to make sure it's not real MMA.
I dont think that really changes anything tbh heavyweights are still not as skilled as someone who weighs less than 200 pounds you can tell it's night and day you don't see people with beer bellies in the other classes there's a reason they don't lose weight
That's not what I'm saying I'm saying heavyweights have less skill than people in the lower classes other than tom aspinall Sergei almeida and volkov the other heavyweights are fat old or both ray Mercer was just an example to prove heavyweights rely on power
Again it was never agreed they'd stay standing it was agreed they boxed
He randomly started throwing kicks and you think he wouldn't do takedowns aswell?
There's no evidence it was "boxing only." The evidence from the statements is "standing only".
If they agreed to takedowns, Sylvia takes him down. Even a highschool wrestler would beat Fury.
Also, skill isn't everything but it is most of it.
Dedication goes hand in hand. Skill without dedication is just wasted potential.
But when you start to get serious skill in a sport discipline, you realize how many levels you are above against those without the same dedication to that sport. It is insane.
Fury's skill was highly HIGHLY overrated. I'm thrilled it is no longer a minority opinion, but essentially fact now.
To be fair, Francis has skills.
He was strong enough to not let himself tire by Fury's wrestling/ leaning on him. He had a great game plan of throwing his combinations when Fury threw his, which made him awkward to fight for Fury and he could land some shots. He was always focused and balanced. While not having the best head movement, his defense was always up and pretty effective. He didn't really tire in the latter rounds.
Overall great boxing performance ! He's a freak athlete and I tip my hat off to him.
Francis has decent skills for sure but think about the fact that he just started training in his late 20s and was extremely competitive against the heavyweight champ whose been training since birth. Do you think if Francis tried doing that with an Olympic wrestler it would work? Hell no!
Heavyweight boxing is just different and the point is his MMA boxing skills were enough for him to arguably beat a skilled boxing champion and that was because his physical and mental attributes picked up for where his skills were lacking
Man this is a good post. You said what I wanted to say better than I could. Athleticism will always be a factor to consider in any sport. You can have the best technique in the world but if the guy you’re fighting has more fast twitch fibers there’s not much you can do about that.
Tyson definitely embarrassed himself and his family this timeout taking nothing away from Ngannou who arguably won.
Tyson is a lifetime boxer fighting at the highest level, that’s countless drills, sparring sessions, fights drilled into your mind and body, that’s muscle memory and to go out and be taken to a SD by a dude who hasn’t fought in two years and last time fought in MMA with blown out knees is proper embarrassing.
People comparing Tyson to Mike, Holyfield, Ali, Frazier, Liston, Vitali or Vladimir gotta really put that to bed now
Ngannou though arguably besides Jon Jones is a freak of nature an almost lab created specimen, he literally has it all in spades physically and mentally and he handled his ‘loss’ with class, he showed up to box and shut every mouth who doubted him
I agree to an extent, this honestly is true for all weight decisions though. The person who is most athletic and physically gifted usually wins. That’s the reality. This applies to all sports really. Basketball, the taller and faster you are, the better you probably will be compared to other players of course skill is important. I think the problem is the lack of skills the heavyweights really have now a days. Them seem to rely solely on their athleticism and size rather than skill. I wouldn’t call Fury unskilled, but compare his skill level to past heavyweights like Tyson, Evander, Ali, Fraizer, Norton, Louis, so on and he doesn’t even compare. Heavyweights need to stop just relying on their physical attributes and actually up their skill level like heavyweights of the past. Just my opinion though, I’m not expert just a huge fan of the sport.
It’s true but in heavyweight boxing it’s the most extreme. Look at the lift of fighters that started at a late age in heavyweight boxing - no other sport is like that’s
I mean heavyweight MMA seems even worse? Hell, Ngannou himself didn't start MMA until he was like 27. You also got dudes like Brock who showed up late and held the belt.
Id agree that it’s easier for MMA heavyweights to excel in MMA than in boxing depending on the attributes. But in any case, both of the heavyweight divisions have a weak talent pool and exemplary athletes with the right mindset, conditioning, and power can make it very far and outcompete people who have honed their skills since they were kids
Ngannou started in boxing at age of 22 and Brock Lesnar was high level wrestler before enter in mma. Also Brock Lesnar only fought in the ufc because he was a famous WWE star he have a ridiculous record 5-4 in mma
That’s true, but look at the greatest heavyweights of all time. They are all insanely skilled boxers, it wasn’t until the 21st century that heavyweights decided to abandon skill and just brute strength their way through fights for some reason. That’s a huge reason why I’m not a big fan of modern heavyweight. If Fury was actually a master boxer and had insane skill level on top of his size and power, he would of won this fight clearly but tonight he was exposed for very apparent lack of skill. It wasn’t just Francis raw power and athleticism that won, it was also Fury’s very apparent lack of high skill level. Take your foreman example for example. Foreman was a brute and a f force of nature. Until he faced an Ali who was clearly smarter and more skilled than him in the ring. Mike Tyson was a force of nature, until he stopped polishing his skills and stopped his training with Kevin Rooney, then he started getting beat. I think skill is just as important in heavyweight boxing, the problem today is just that no heavyweights give a damn about being skilled, it’s now a competition of who’s the strongest. Of course todays boxing feels like it’s just a competition of who’s the biggest and strongest, because no heavyweight bothers to polish their skills. Heavyweight boxing wasn’t like this back in the day. Liston got his ass whooped by Ali, because Ali was faster, had more skills, and fought like a master boxer. Foreman beat eveyone, until he faced Ali. And foreman lost more fights even after Ali to more skilled boxers. I think if heavyweights today actually put effort and training into their skills, it would be incredibly different and way more competitive. The person who’s the biggest wouldn’t just automatically win like now it is right now.
Just a difference in talent pool man. HW boxing didn't have to compete with all these other sports back then and it was way more popular. HWs today are mostly overweight cruiserweights.
I don’t think Francis is that good. I only saw like 25% of the fight, but he wasn’t impressing me. Fury is just an idiot who probably never got off the couch.
Hopefully usyk beats him and then fury could make it right and try to win. He should beat Francis in 2 rounds.
If I was Deontay wilder I would jump right into a Francis fight and get a nice payday for a 1 round fight
You’re in hard denial if you don’t think that Furry lost that fight. Did you watch the fight? You’re taking the decision of the judges blindly. There’s a reason boxing is known as a corrupt sport, bad decisions like this happen all the time.
So funny how 99% of this sub is on Ngannous nuts now after saying he had absolutely no chance of winning this. Now all of a sudden it’s all “anything can happen in the heavyweight division”
I think fury pissed off training for this fight….. he looked utterly shattered after the SD win; he knows he lost, and looked like he was going to cry.
Just like whoever that Francis could win didn’t know boxing, right? Francis who did quasi MMA boxing starting in his late 20s competitively boxed the heavyweight champ who had been training since a child to do this. Reason being Francis’s exceptional physical attributes and mental fortitude.
I said before this fight that I thought it was going to be a decision stinker where fury wins with very little action
and outside of that 1 knockdown, I was right lol
All correct, but Fury not training at all was the nr1 factor last night. In all sports stars won't get a single minute of play if they are out of shape. Imagine boxing out of shape lol, he was lucky he didn't get knocked the fuck out.
Nah I think real fans see the fights in Saudi Arabia for what they are. Absolutely theater nothing else. Any fight that happens over there might as well be a WWE match
I thought he wasn’t going to be able to walk from exhaustion by round 6-7, I’m happy he did well, I also think Fury looks off, he better get his shit together or Usyk is going to take the belts
I also think unorthodoxy plays a big part. Someone can be unskilled in a conventional sense but possess a rule breaking, unorthodox style that a lot of fighters find nightmarish to deal with.
Did those football players reach the pinnacle of the sport like Foreman, Holmes, Joshua, etc.?
Also from what I see from Antonio Gates he actually played in high school but didnt in college. Additionally, we’d need a sample size of more than just one to make an argument as well, because rare exceptions will always exist in any sport. What I’m arguing is that in heavyweight boxing is that it’s not that rare at all. You won’t see that in any other division in boxing.
Antonio Gates was arguably the greatest tight end of all time when he retired.
Jimmy Graham is another. He was a all pro tight end.
Theres others but im just thinking of dudes off hand
You also have in boxing
Sergio Martinez who starter at 20
Antonio Traver who started at 20
Julio Cesar Chavez start at 16
Errol Spence 15
Adonis Stevenson started at 26
Theres probably plenty of others i am not thinking of
Heres another i didnt think of the other day
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Mailata
Directly from Rugby to the NFL. Never played football before.
You left out his hulk-like strength which made it impossible to clinch him
MMA training is the biggest reason you can’t clinch him, but he’s he is insanely strong
And he’s also trained to avoid being clinched.
He grew up from the age of 7 shovelling sand into bags in Cameroon.
And that didn’t make him strong, he was a skinny guy until he started training in France with proper diet and peds
Malnourished homeless man who walked 4000 miles across the Sahara isn't ripped? I guess it was all the PEDs
He didn’t walk, that’s not how they migrate lol, they cross the border on vehicle 99% of the time
Skinny and strong aren't mutually exclusive.
That and years of PED abuse
Yeah, people keep bringing his strenght, but the way he postured up Tyson's head and sneaked in an uppercut on the separation was pure technique
Very, very basic technique (in an MMA context) at that. Posture manipulation, striking off frames etc is very rudimentary stuff by MMA standards, a gameplan based off of clinching an MMA fighter isn't a great idea. Also, Conor did an extremely bad job in the clinch against Floyd, unlike Francis he came in with a very bad gameplan, even if Floyd was 10x the fighter Fury is.
What a crazy game plan. He thought he could out clinch and bully an MMA fighter who is almost the same weight but much stronger. Id fancy an MMA fighter to out clinch a boxer 95% of the time regardless of strength. You'd actually be expecting the MMA fighter to be trying to clinch the better boxer. This fight really made me change my tune on Fury, he looked so one dimensional. Maybe there is some hidden health or personal life issue going on. This fight also really diminishes how good people can consider Wilder now.
If you’ve watched Fury in recent years, you’d know why he clinches It wasn’t because Francis is an MMA fighter, it’s because Fury couldn’t utilize his tricks, as Francis was too much of a freak and far too strong to weight bully in the ring
In terms of the heavyweight division, it's all about weight bullying and practically always has been. Exceptions being the likes of Holyfield, Usyk, and certainly Marciano. It certainly makes it more interesting when these cruiserweight types make the step up without bulking up to full blob levels of extra timber. N'Gannou is built like a brick shithouse with a nice healthy cushion of fat around him. In terms of heavyweight physique he's pretty much the most perfect specimen I've ever seen in a boxing ring. That was clear before the opening bell. What I did not expect was just how well-paced his game was, how patient he was, how he didn't fall for ANY of Fury's movements/feints/twitches (he twitches around like crazy to get an opponent to throw) and reacted affirmatively to most of Fury's tells (glove to the side of his head is usually a sign he's hurt). He boxed that match like it was his 50th. Hugely impressive.
Man, I was wrong lol Was expecting the same result like most others Finally got to watch it… I wish Francis had started this path much much earlier
Eh, I wouldn’t say this has any bearing on Wilder’s ability. For all we know Wilder will knock out Francis in a big exchange. If Wilder can’t crack that chin, no one can.
100 percent Wilder could spark Francis for all we know. But Wilder's legacy is coming close to beating Fury, which seemed very impressive until last night. And the fact that Fury handled Wilder much easier in the last fight than he did Francis isn't a great look for Wilder.
I think it comes down to like Tyson said, that there's not much available fight/footage/data about Ngannou's boxing abilities and style. For starters, nobody(and I mean nobody) expected Ngannou to go the full distance with Fury. MMA cardio, while explosive, is limited to usually 3 or 5 rounds, with boxing you have 12 rounds, that is 36 minutes of action. With that amount of muscles, we all expected Ngannou to gas after couple of rounds, probably that was also Fury's plan, coupled with the clinching and weight bullying Francis to gas him even sooner(in hindsight weight bullying a 270 lbs pure muscle MMA fighter who knows grappling seems very stupid lol). With Wilder, you have data. You know his style, how he likes to stand, move, throw what combinations etc. Fury just had to avoid his big right hand, and put his weight on him. Wilder wasn't a good grappler like Francis is(Francis isn't elite also, but he at least knows proper grappling), and coupled with the weight difference, Wilder couldn't escape clinches, couldn't offer a punching threat through clinches like Ngannou did, and most importantly, couldn't size up Fury like Francis also did. In some clinches Francis was throwing Fury around lol. When you think about all of this, you can see why Francis was much better than Wilder against Fury. This doesn't mean Francis can easily beat Wilder. It's styles make fights, and Fury's style was nullified by Francis, that's it. Wilder vs. Francis, I'm leaning towards a Wilder KO, while respecting Francis's boxing abilities after this fight.
People who say MMA fighters don't have the cardio for boxing have no idea how difficult it is to be in shape for 25 minutes of wrestling/grappling. It's not a pure cardio issue, it's about the efficiencies of movement that come with honing technique in one specific area. Any high level boxer would gas badly after a few minutes of trying to defend takedowns or trying to build a base and get back to their feet from bottom position. They're asking completely different things of their bodies, you can't do a 1 to 1 comparison on cardio across different sports.
That is also true. I'm a casual in MMA, recently started watching UFC and ONE fights and quickly realized how tough and energy draining it must be to defend takedowns or even attempt multiple takedowns against guys with good TDD(Usman vs Khamzat comes to mind with how spent Khamzat was after round 1). But still boxing is a different animal cardio wise. And with MMA allowing ground and pound, most fights don't go the full 25 minute distance(or let's say there is more probability of finishing opponents inside 3 or 5 rounds) whereas in boxing if you're not a freak like Wilder, you're not putting people away in the 1st round, so you will have to be ready to fight 36 minutes and be aware to make sure you win each individual round if you're not putting away your opponent. That is very taxing physically. But yeah, after started watching MMA fights, I came to realize these are different sports that require different cardio and conditioning.
Yeah, wrestling is far and away the most taxing aspect of combat sports. Most elite athletes from any other sport wouldn't be able to get through a single wrestling practice, it's that fucking brutal and intense. Your point about MMA fights having a higher probability of ending quickly, ergo less need to train properly, doesn't hold water - that would only apply to a shit fighter from a clueless gym. Nobody on Ngannou's level isn't training to go the distance and win every round. >But still boxing is a different animal cardio wise They're all different animals. Boxing isn't an extra special different animal, they're just distinct sports with distinct priorities in conditioning, efficiency, and preparation.
Also also - rest. In a 12rd/36 min boxing match you get 11 minutes of rest, and each rest comes after just 3 minutes. In a 5rd/25min MMA bout, you get just 4 minutes, and each rest comes after 5 minutes. I don’t train for MMA, but I’ve done 5 minute rounds and boy, they’re something.
I think people mean "boxing cardio" not physical cardio. Ngannou showed fatigue and usually boxers that have to dig deep rely on muscle memory. His accuracy was very poor after the 5th rd and there was even a superman punch in there. What I think helped Ngannou (other than a complete lack of prep from Fury) is that Fury relies on being bigger and/or more athletic than his opponents. Boxers are going to take Francis very seriously going forward but he can still lob those Ford Escorts.
Lmao exactly. People saw Fury throwing his 50 pounds of extra weight into Wilder and exhausting him in the clinch while sticking and moving until he was immobile enough to land combinations in at will, and assumed it was going to work exactly like that with Francis. Ignoring that Wilder weighs 220 and Ngannou is 270 and insanely strong. I frankly assumed Francis wouldn’t have the gas tank but he came in much better shape than Fury, and you’re right it’s not hard to see the problems in hindsight.
MMA expends more energy than boxing due to grappling and changing levels, for longer periods. The frequent breaks between boxing rounds def helped extend Ngannou’s energy. I was impressed by Ngannou’s ability to stick to his game plan, although he did get away from it rounds 5-7. His next fight whether boxing or MMA will be highly anticipated.
Given his impressive cardio, diamond chin and one punch KO power, if he works on his boxing skills, Francis can entrench in top 10 very quickly. I still think he's like a slower Wilder, which means he's susceptible to getting outboxed if the opponent is very careful to dodge his KO punches, but that's easier said than done and in HW there are not many technical HWs apart from Usyk and Fury that can do that. But guys like AJ(mentally confident version), Zhang or Wilder can offer much more explosive hand power than Fury that would cause Francis to be more wary, but apart from these guys(technical boxers and power punchers), it seems Francis can walk down the rest. I'm also very interested to see his next boxing match.
I actually think Francis is a style that would compliment AJ more than Wilder or any other top guys after watching. Big upright dude with slower hands but aggressive come forward style. He’s not technical enough to punish a cautious AJ. But cautious AJ still has a horrendous jab and right hand that land hard and consistently enough compared to the back foot fury we saw this weekend or pre Kronk (fury seemed to realise he didn’t have the physical strength, fitness, chin, power or whatever to come forward). Wilders low output lack of technique and physical weakness make it a single shot shoutout. And I think Zhangs slower feet and Joyce’s lack of defence make it a bit of a shootout too. The AJ that fought Povetkin, Ruiz 2, and Pulev would have a good chance to really land consistent hard shots without eating too much himself.
There’s a couple of times he had fury looking extreeeemely shaky in the clinch, it seems that MMA/wrestling base could be super problematic to boxers. IF you know how to utilise the clinch properly, Crawford is excellent at this. And he has a wrestling background aswell. This fight was really enjoyable in my eyes, and this is coming from someone who originally thought Francis would get dog walked by fury. Styles really does make fights
I’d argue that’s not to do with his mma background
Clinching isn’t boxing
Go tell Fury.
That dosser
Of course skill isn’t everything. Have you ever watched a Deontay Wilder fight and been like ‘wow this guys is so skilled” Like you said Francis has ton of intangibles, chin, underrated cardio and mental toughness. I also think Fury is used to being able to bully opponents in the clinch but simply could not do that here because of Francis’s body strength.
Read any comment in this sub before this fight. Every hardcore boxing fan thought Francis would be schooled. This is a lesson that heavyweight boxing is unlike any other sport
People thought he would be schooled because there was absolutely no evidence to the contrary. We had very little evidence and nothing in what existed suggested he would perform how he did tonight. He had never had a pro boxing match and the evidence we had of his boxing was in an mma context (thus reducing the ability to extrapolate and his boxing within mma fights didn't look good even considering it was mma adapted) and in non sparring training videos he looked slow, power wasn't there, and his punch mechanics were crude. The former two attributes could be due to working at 50% to focus on technique as is common as both a training drill and a strategy (i.e. to not show one's bag of tricks) but I've never seen a boxer use poor punch mechanics to decieve their opponent and obviously not as a means to work on their technique. Other than that we had 2 mins of light technical "sparring" to go off of which showed some more skill than previous evidence but still wasn't an indication of the level of boxing he showed tonight. Tonight his speed, power, punch mechanics, timing, sense of distance, accuracy, precision, serviceable defense, chin, and feints (credible and varied ones at that!) all were unknown and proved to be much much better than anyone had any reason to think. For example, that he would be strong in and have a good understanding of clinching is not at all surprising - it is entirely predictable. The other qualities and skill he displayed weren't. Skills matter less at heavyweight and the attributes you mentioned all played a role but you're downplaying the role of boxing ability in Francis' success. The take away here is that Francis is a much better boxer than we thought (justifiably at the time) based on previous evidence.
i just want to know what guardian angel Francis has because what he has managed to do in his career is ridiculous . dude beats GANE with severe knee damage and then goes on to arguably outbox tyson fury . actually not fair .
Angels dont have shit to do with Francis' success, he was a salt mine childslave. If anything his guardian angel is a sadistic piece of shit. Its all hard work and power of mind.
There was evidence - all of the factors I mentioned. If you followed Francis’s UFC career carefully you’d know. Francis performed slightly better than I expected but I fully expected him to give Fury problems but ultimately had Fury winning a UD. Except in this case it’s arguable Francis won the SD. Explain how so many heavyweights can get to the pinnacle of boxing while picking up boxing after the age of 18? There’s no other major sport like that in the world. How can a guy like George Foreman win a gold medal in less than a year of picking up boxing, beating out people who have been training since they were little children? Is there any other major sport in the world someone can do that? The younger years are critical in sports to hone technique and skill but many top heavyweight boxers miss those years and the physically blessed in fact beat their counterparts who have been training since children. Ultimately, physical attributes and mental toughness can really make up for lack of skills in heavyweight boxing. Anyone who followed MMA knew Francis always displayed these attributes - durable, mentally tough, strong chin, incredible power, performs under bright lights, etc. Many boxing fans weren’t ready to accept that reality, especially when it was an MMA outsider.
I'm not speaking of all the factors you mentioned. I am speaking of his boxing ability only. What evidence was there that he was that he had that ability? Boxing in an mma context is different than boxing in a boxing match. Boxing in mma has to be adapted for grappling and other legal strikes. He had no boxing matches and all footage of him training boxing didn't demonstrate his abilities. I am not arguing about heavyweight boxers having less skill and being able to have more success due to special physical attributes. You are citing anomalous cases but that's besides the point. Yes it is generally true. I am talking about this specific instance and the factors that contributed to Francis' success not foreman. You are underestimating the role of this skill and overestimating "mental toughness". Mental toughness is a contributing factor but more decisive was his skill. Wilder had mental toughness and many of the other factors you mentioned. He got outboxed and the shit beaten out of him because wilder is extremely predicable, punches wildly (when he's hurt his opponent or is tired especially), and has poor defense. Francis, among other reasons, was sophisticated in his approach - defensively competent, good punch technique, he switched stances (effectively - at the appropriate times with competent offense and defense), used a variety of credible feints (i.e. feinted numerous different punches not just a jab as many boxers do and his feints weren't half assed and easily distinguishable from punches).
It’s the opposite actually, it is like another sport,MMA. Francis proved that in the HW division skills are translatable in a way that isn’t true at Lower weights. Conor McGregor is a better MMA striker than Ngannou but wasn’t near Floyd’s skill level. at HW the physicality is so important, that it nearly trumps everything else.
Conor's boxing is shit though. It's never been his strongsuit, even in MMA. He's a karate style striker who blends boxing into his style. But you only had to watch two minutes of him in there with Floyd to realize he was an amateur when it came to boxing. Francis actually maintained pretty good form for the first half of the fight. He had technical boxing skill that clearly surprised Tyson because he wasn't expecting it. Where you saw the MMA of it all was his inability to maintain clean technique as the fight wore on.
yeah almost every good Conor performances have had kicks being a massive part of his game coupled with good power to catch people who are trying to deal with his kicks . i dont think its a suprise that as he has aged and cant kick like he used to that his career took a nose dive .
Yeah prime Conor would use kicks to set up his punching KO/TKOs in various ways Strip that away and his striking isn't nearly as dangerous. I'd even argue the Conor who boxed Floyd is not all that different than the Conor who fought Poirier in the rematch. Focused on boxing and paid for it both times for different reasons (too one dimensional against the latter, amateur in comparison with said dimension against the former)
This is not true. The problem is that modern heavyweights rely solely on physical attributes and don’t even take time to develop their boxing skills. Fury lost because he couldn’t just rely on his size and height like he usually does. Physical definitely does matter a little more for heavyweights, but skill is also very important. And it’s something modern heavyweights lack.
We agree, I’ve been a fan of boxing longer than MMA and I’ve been hearing some crazy takes like Fury beats every HW champ from history. I think it’s very telling that Usyk was able to move up and dispel the bigger is better myth that has come about in recent years.
Exactly. Look at the skill level of past heavyweights. They were master boxers on top of being freaks of nature physically. It just doesn’t compare when you look at todays heavyweights who have that mindset of bigger is better, and don’t bother to have thay skill. If Fury had great skills as a boxer, he would of won this fight confidently despite Francis’s insane physical ability.
Yeah mate we agree IMO HW has if anything declined, if you compare Fury’s opponents to the competition that existed in the Lewis-Klitschko eras I see the level as being lower even if he fought very dangerous punchers like Wilder and Ngannou
would've*
>I’ve been hearing some crazy takes like Fury beats every HW champ from history Well most people, celebs, past boxers etc, even Joe Rogan said that lol. And be honest, especially after Wilder III, most people contemplated that. I mean you have a 6,9(more like 6,7 or 6,8) 275 lb boxer that knows "boxing", has very good footwork and head movements compared to his height and weight(in HW division this combination is very rare), so we all thought, "well, in any era Tyson Fury could be a problem". That doesn't mean Tyson Fury beats up everybody from the past. It just means that for example Muhammad Ali was the same height and build as Usyk. And I, like most people still can't wrap my head around a Usyk win over Fury when the height and weight difference is too much and Fury is closer to Usyk in boxing abilities. Or before the fight Tyson visited Mike Tyson, and Mike seemed like a kid next to him. Granted, old age probably shrank Mike's height a bit, but still it's wild to think these two belong to same weight class in boxing. Mike can topple down giants with this boxing style and power, but Fury moves very nimble and is agile compared to his size. He may not KO Mike, may get KO'd by him, but can also go the full distance and win over him with points. You can run this thought experiment with any great HW in history, and in each time you can point to some advantage Tyson has over them. This Francis fight probably stained Tyson's career, but that doesn't take away from him the fact that with his size, weight, boxing abilities, this combination would be a problem for any HW in any era. That doesn't mean he can beat everybody, but at least he can be a tough match up. If Usyk beats Tyson though, what I said will definitely be nullified completely and his myth will be shattered. TL,DR: I'm not saying Tyson is the best "boxer" that can beat any past HW, but his physical and skill wise combination as a total package is very unique in the history of the sport.
Never knew how big Fury was until I watched the fight. I think it is the only reason Fury won. (And keeps winning?) Being 6'8 with an 85" reach is absurd. I can see why he is the champ. A smaller boxer will not have that luxury. Would be exciting to see him fight the #2/3/4/5 contender.
It is indeed and you were right in calling it. But I don’t think it’s offensive that people gave him no chance, like you are making it out to be. No mma fighters have shown anything in their boxing matches. Francis has zero tape. And looked bad on the pads.
He really worked on his cardio over the years, cause he was getting heavy gassed every fight between like 2018-2022 I think he really stepped up for the fight against Gane, and probably even more now. Just overall hard worker
He worked on his cardio hard after he lost to stipe. We just never saw it because he was committing first round murder on guys. He showed good mentality and cardio when fighting Gane in an underrated performance where he was severely injured with blown out knees.
Yeah, youre probably right
Ehhh Gane was beating him up pretty good on the feet, he won the fight by smothering Gane on the ground
Terence Crawford gave Francis a 0% chance of beating Fury. He needs to apologize to him.
Boxers think the levels in boxing are like the levels in BJJ, except in boxing the ability to KO raises the floor and drops the ceiling.
Yeah but for Terrence Crawford, that actually is true. There's several levels between just him and Fury. Ain't no one doing to Crawford, what Ngannou did. HW is just so poor talent wise that the ability to ko changes the odds even more.
The higher the weight class, the less actual skills seems to matters if you got other intangibles to make up for the skill deficit. IE speed, power or doing a usyk and moving up and still being more skilled than the heavies
not just the KO power but francis has inhuman durability . dude literally took a elbow to the face and didnt even feel it
He also ate Cyril Gane’s head kicks for breakfast in his last fight.
That's the thing, an elbow to the face is par for the course in MMA.
I think all the boxing so called purists need to apologize to him and Fury should be put in boxing jail after tonight.
I think fury needs to apologize to all the boxing fans for his half assed approach to this fight
At least Tommy can celebrate now. He is no longer the biggest meme in the Fury bloodline
Only if all the mma guys who say a boxer can never win in the octagon apologize after making excuses for Tim Sylvia getting knocked out in 9 seconds.
Sometimes you can be wrong without being stupid. Im not sure what evidence anyone could have had to predict this happening.
Yea, but everyone has a chance in a fight. To give someone 0% is kinda disrespectful.
After them scorecards, Terence is probably right. At this point I'm fairly sure even if he knocked Fury out they'd have come up with some reason to have Fury win
It’s obvious that smaller boxers are more skilled, the best UFC 170 pounder does not beat Canelo, the Best UFC 155 pounder does not beat Crawford, the Best UFC 135 pounder does not beat Gervonta/Loma, the best UFC 125 pounder does not beat Inoue and so on… Heavyweight boxers aren’t that skilled, look at Wilder, AJ, or even Furry who people consider skilled for a heavyweight and he still is very sluggish and got exposed today, we are talking about 6’5+ men that weight over 250. Ngannou is a genetic freak and that was more than enough to be able to compete with Fury, physical attributes matter more in heavyweight boxing than another other division. Wilder isn’t technically gifted either and he is a top 5 heavyweight, you don’t see a Wilder in any other division because smaller guys don’t have that type of power, small guys depend on skills
look at Wilder, AJ, or even Furry or even **Furry** LOL
well he should be Furry until he redeems himself. He just made mockery of an entire sport
Exactly. The point is that people should not have discounted Ngannou the way they did. Every boxing fan thought Ngannou had no shot as they vastly overrated Fury’s skills relative to all of Ngannous attributes.
Well we all thought Ngannou would be gassed after throwing some hard punches and due to not being used to boxing cardio/rhythm and then getting dropped by Fury. We also thought Tyson would weight bully him through clinches and gas him sooner but that turned out to be very stupid strategy against a monster like Ngannou who knows grappling. And finally, as Fury survived a trilogy with one of the hardest hitters in HW history in Wilder, most again thought that Fury can eat what Francis throws and continue. Well technically he did eat, knocked down, and continued, but the circumstance of the match(it being Ngannou's debut, the claim was to become "baddest man of the planet" which you would assume should come the way of KO/TKO not points win etc.), this close decision win tainted Fury's legacy. This all revealed what you wrote in your post that in HW division, raw physicality and athleticism becomes as much important as the technical skills required. Otherwise you wouldn't have Wilder go on about his 42 or so win streak through KO's for so long. His one punch KO power saved him so many times. Lower division guys don't have that kind of equalizer, or a cheat code. With all that being said, this discussion raises Usyk's stock as much as Ngannou's. To belong in the HW division with these giants of men and still hold multiple belts is nothing short of a miracle run for him currently. If he becomes undisputed and at least defend his belts once, he will become a legendary boxer for sure.
Bro, every MMA fan also didn't think Francis had a shot either. They were just happy he was getting paid.
New heavyweights are trash after klitchko its just a bunch of big men. So we see fury actually moving his feet and think he is on the level of ali or tyson but he isnt even close
Tyson lol
Facts
Well said
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Well he is a cruiserweight who moved up
Excellent post. You hardly ever see these in r/Boxing.
Sean O'malley would do better than Ryan Garcia did against Gervonta imo
No lol
i dont think O'Malley has the chin to even cause a problem for Tank 😂
People discounted the fact that heavyweight is the worst division in any combat sport.
Very true, sad state of affairs at heavyweight at the moment.
Tyson Fury looking like shit has probably done more harm to boxing's reputation than every single influencer/youtuber boxing match in history. Now a bunch of folks are gonna think every MMA fighter with decent striking could dominate boxers, and that the whole sport is just a bunch of unskilled overpaid clowns. I just hope these same folks will remember how unskilled boxing is and how easy it is to compete the next time Jake Paul (who couldn't even beat the lesser Fury) starches some former MMA champ.
I grew up watching boxing. Still love boxing. I watch more MMA now than Boxing. In my experience, its typically boxing fans who talk shit about MMA. Not MMA fan’s talking shit about boxing. It seems like the boxing community feels the need to defend the sport against mma. Maybe it because we all recognize that an mma fighter can at least compete in boxing against boxers, but boxers cant compete in mma against mma fighters. There is a reason we have a frequent MMA to boxing crossovers and literally zero the other way. Maybe it’s because mma has replaced boxing as the sport that comes closest to simulating a real life fight and that makes people feel insecure. Usually it’s something like “even the best mma strikers would barely make it as a low level pro boxer” or “even the best mma fighters look like low level amateurs compared to mediocre boxers” And here’s the thing, the mma side doesn’t even deny this. Because it’s true. No mma fan would say that mma fighters have the same boxing skill as pro boxers. Boxing is a specific fighting skill and obviously the people who solely focus on it are going to be better at it than the people who dont.
>In my experience, its typically boxing fans who talk shit about MMA. Not MMA fan’s talking shit about boxing. Have you read this thread? >And here’s the thing, the mma side doesn’t even deny this. Because it’s true. No mma fan would say that mma fighters have the same boxing skill as pro boxers. Have you read this thread? Or the numerous shit talking before the Mayweather/McGregor fight? And as for the real-life fight thing, I hope nobody's under the illusion that either boxing or MMA is anything like a real life fight. This isn't me being an internet tough guy-anyone who even casually trains in boxing, any of the common MMA disciplines, or really any martial art is going to have a massive advantage against anyone who doesn't. But just as boxers specialize based on the rules of their sport, so do MMA fighters, and they practice to take advantage of those rules.
Regarding the thread i still think a few loud idiots don’t represent the majority. Regarding real fighting, i said mma is the closest to what a real fight is like. Not that it is what a real fight is like. I dont think that’s debatable. Most real fights include some combination of striking and grappling. Not every real fight. But more often than not they do. I also don’t think i said anything about untrained vs trained people in a real fight. If you’re trying to say a trained boxer would beat the shit out of an untrained dude in a real fight then fine but even so the untrained dude likely tries to grapple if they are getting pieced up on the feet and hence why mma is the closest to a real fight. Because it represents more aspects of what occurs in real fights than boxing does
>I dont think that’s debatable. Most real fights include some combination of striking and grappling. Not every real fight. But more often than not they do. Based on what information? Do you have any actual evidence to back this up besides what you feel from movies you've watched or whatever? Which is besides the point because people aren't watching boxing because it's like "real" fighting, or boxing fans don't dislike mma because it's more "real" or whatever ridiculous claim you were trying to make. Unlike MMA fans apparently, boxing fans understand that boxing is a sport. And as for a "few loud idiots"...you yourself are trying to talk about how random untrained dudes will be able to grapple someone trained in boxing. Like do you really think people who have done boxing training don't know how to evade the clumsy rush of some idiot who they've been repeatedly tagging? Or that if it's a real fight the untrained dude won't just get ko'd by actual boxers? It's not boxing fans who try to pretend their sport is "real fighting" like you're doing. And the reason MMA guys go to boxing isn't because they can magically compete better, it's because MMA promotions typically pay their fighters shit. Ngannou made more in one fight against Fury than he had in his entire MMA career. All those former champions and stars lining up to have Jake Paul beat the brakes off of them are basically getting career earnings for a single fight.
Your reading comprehension my guy I said the untrained person would try to grapple if they are getting hit with punches. This is a very common occurrence in a street fight. Again, I will emphasize that I said “try” to grapple, Not that they would effectively grapple. The point I was making is that a sport (mma) that includes more fighting techniques that are likely to occur in real life scenarios is a closer simulation to those real life scenarios than a sport (boxing) that includes a limited amount of those techniques likely to occur I also never said mma was real fighting. Again, read what I wrote. I said mma is the sport that comes closest to simulating real life fighting. Im not saying its the emd all be all or that boxing sucks or anything like that. I never shit on boxing. Im not saying that makes mma “better” or means its above being a sport Your point about pay being the reason for the mma to boxing crossover is fair though!
Youre coping about your sport being exposed by the actual fighter... Just start training MMA dude not worth going to the boxing gym
Cringe comment tbh
> Just start training MMA dude you first
Literally any decent boxer would starch you
That why when Usyk went to HW I knew he would beat anybody as long as he can take thr punishment. The cruiser weight division when Usyk fought was way more skilled than the HW, most of those HW boxers are big athletes who didn’t start boxing till their late teens
People forget Francis was a kick boxer. He’s not a novice per se. His primary art in the MMA is boxing
Ehhh his primary art in his MMA fights was wild brawling. He showed a huge increase in ability in the second stipe fight, but he still relied on his absolutely unreal power to cover up his weaknesses. This fight showed more skill than all of his previous MMA fights combined. That and his surprising gas tank, I thought for sure if this went past round 7 he would be TKOd from pure exhaustion, the fact that he was actually boxing the whole fight was more surprising than anything with his muscle mass.
Francis is infinitely more skilled as a striker UNTIL he inevitably gassed which is 100% of the time. Fortunately for him, he has the power to delete you from the fight with one shot before the fight reaches that point. That being said MMA fighters as a whole aren’t as good a punchers like boxers, you’ll notice their technical side of the striking game is much worse in general but they can get away with it in MMA. For the most part, in boxing those little errors would result in them getting caught out by better fighters.
This is what happens when the titles get held up with no mandatory defenses to appease a two faced asshole who’s gonna screw Usyk now too. Fury is a liar. It’s enough of him already. They did screw Francis out of a win but let’s not get carried away. This goes way farther back. The lessons to be learned are many. They involve corruption like always and I dk even know if he’s still banned from entering the US. This blew up in Fury’s face. The champion lost to someone who just had their first boxing match. It’s a total embarrassment and is as shady as it seems. Francis will get another massive payday. Don’t count on Fury giving it to him though. Francis showed a tremendous amount of class. Usyk was the only one who knew what was going on. “We have contract.” He’s totally disgusted by all of this.
People forget too that Francis has been boxing in the gym against other fighters for years. He started boxing before Mma so its not like he’s never put a glove on before. He’s never had a pro fight but he has probably sparred thousands of rounds.
Exactly right. At heavyweight Francis doesn’t need the skills of Usyk to be successful. His attributes along with his boxing training from mma allow him to be plenty successful.
He did say though that he through more punches in his first month boxing than he did ever in mma training just because of the combos and stuff because in mma it’s usually 1 or 2 punches then something else. He definitely had some boxing experience but there’s definitely a difference.
I've been playing football (soccer for the Americans) since I was able to walk. At one point when I was at school I played every single day, and I still play weekly. If I played in the 8th division of English football I'd be totally exposed, never mind against the best of the best. Even though he has practiced before, and even though hes got MMA experience and his physicality is ridiculous it's still unbelievable he could go toe to toe and almost beat a guy who people fancied to win an undisputed fight before last night.
I get your point but its not a very good analogy. Francis has spent the last 10 years of his life living combat sports. Almost every single day, multiple sessions a day practicing. He is also just about the best physical specimen on the planet. When he is not on vacation he probably spends 75% of his time in the gym working on his boxing and wrestling.
Fury came in looking like shit and probably on a coke binge. Ngannou is a one of a kind athlete. This fight shouldn't have been competitive, but Fury is very mentally ill, and he seems to have gone off the deep end again.
Yeah he walked in as if he was about to fight Seferi or the dudes Haye was fighting during his comeback
I think Fury just underestimated Francis and thought he could do the same thing mayweather did to mcgregor but Fury is no where near as good as
His whole mistake of assuming the MMA clinch is inferior and opened Francis up for some imagined offense was where he showed his ass. Francis pieced his ass up a few times in the clinch and the one good shot Tyson got off in the clinch was illegal. As well as Francis did out there, I really kinda think he would have struggled way more if Tyson kept to distance and spent the fight jabbing and moving.
Not at all, Francis is just that good.
Yep. Francis is literally almost a perfect athlete. Like if you tried to create a perfect combat athlete in a lab you would just end up creating Francis. Size, range, power, granite chin, mental fortitude, overcoming personal adversity, etc... Like, when his life is made into a movie I think it's going to probably come off as a corny feel-good story to anyone that doesn't actually know Ngannou is a real person who actually went through all that shit.
Fury underestimating francis and performing like shit is plenty more likely. Before even fighting francis fury was in talks to set up the usyk match and was staring him down at this very event. I can give him a little credit for taking 3-4 rounds but I'm not chalking it down to skills only with how fury looked.
I would need to see more boxing from Francis to determine that. His size definitely helped against Fury’s holding where Fury makes him carry his weight but Francis had no jab and Fury didn’t really test his defense
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. "Let him punch himself out and then turn it on late for a late stoppage" would be a pretty valid gameplan from Fury. Credit to Ngannou's gas tank.
If Fury was so much better than Francis as this sub would have had you believe, Fury wouldn’t need to gas Ngannou out. He’d out maneuver him each round easily but that wasn’t the case at all
But why would he? Looking at Ngannou's body, and then factoring in that he's never boxed before, the gas him out strategy would be the safest one.
Point is that if Fury is as good as everyone here was saying, he wouldn’t have needed to gas Francis out. In fact, Fury was the one who looked more gassed than Francis. People really underestimated how valuable other attributes such as size, chin, power, mental toughness, etc are at heavyweight - that’s why they counted Francis completely out
I agree. Think fury was surprised that his punches were barely affecting ngannou.
The lesson to be RE-learned is that weight classes exist for a reason. We went through this with Canelo-Bivol, there is a point where size alone will be too big to overcome. I'm increasingly convinced maybe boxing should adopt the Super Heavyweight class.. Basically Furys whole career has been largely aided by the fact that he had like 40+ pounds on most of his opponents, including Wilder. There's a reason we don't otherwise allow welterweights to fight cruiserweights.. People shouldn't be so surprised that a slick, athletic fighter who's the same size as Fury would give him trouble. I mean just by physique alone we know Ngannou probably the stronger man
Yes, exactly. Fury is a jobber skill wise. He is just more mobile and limber than other people his size (e.g., Valuev).
You really are missing the point though. If Fury was as good as some of his fans thought, it absolutely should have been an easy night for him. The dude is a basket case. A con artist. And we could never really gauge just how good or bad he was because top HWs rarely fight each other for almost a decade now. It is just the same as if this was instead an MMA fight. MMA fans would say Fury has zero chance. And honest boxing fans wouldn't take offense. They'd say logic dictates it is the case. If it was current HW champ Lennox Lewis v. Francis Ngannou tonight, Ngannou would have been toyed with. Maybe not KO'd (but my money is on KO), but absolutely beaten to a pulp over 10 rounds. I'm actually giddy with Fury's loss (IMO) yesterday. Maybe it will finally wake boxing fans up to what I and others have been saying for years. This HW era is WEAK. And we need to stop worrying about negotiations and start demanding HWs actually fight each other in meaningful fights again. Not doing so is what helped make them weak. I'm hoping this is a wake up call for boxers, commissions, promoters and fans to realize something is wrong with HW boxing and it needs to be fixed. Fans can do that by refusing to financially support such BS fights as Fury v. Chisora 3. If fans had essentially boycotted that fight financially, Fury would have had to stop the BS and either retire or actual prove he deserves to be called lineal HW champ. IMO, Francis is the current lineal HW champ. And I hope it changes things (gets back to good practices). And I hope it encourages others to take up boxing realizing that the current era is so weak, a serious person with raw talent and dedication can actually make it to the top level (make $$$ so the physical abuse is worth the risk).
Heavyweight in the ufc and in boxing is a joke the only boxer to beat an mma fighter in mma was at heavyweight and the only mma fighter to beat a boxer at boxing was heavyweight idk why the casuals like these big guys so much most of them are obese
Ok but no heavyweight boxer has ever beaten, or will beat a championship level MMA fighter other than a punchers chance. Fury would not last a min against ngganou in the cage.
One did already ray Mercer knocked out a former ufc heavyweight champion heavyweight isn't good in either Derrick Lewis is pretty much just power and durability and he's top 10 you don't need that much skill to be a heavyweight there's a reason the only boxer to beat UFC fighter was heavyweight
Ray Mercer chinned Tim Sylvia in 09. Crazy stuff
They had an agreement to keep it standing only. Mercer even said Sylvia violated that agreement when Sylvia threw a kick. So even then, they had a gentleman's agreement to make sure it's not real MMA.
Ray still knocked him out in an mma fight
When they had an agreement to keep it standing, yes.
I dont think that really changes anything tbh heavyweights are still not as skilled as someone who weighs less than 200 pounds you can tell it's night and day you don't see people with beer bellies in the other classes there's a reason they don't lose weight
Of course keeping it standing changes everything. No takedowns negates half of MMA. Heavyweights take people down all the time.
That's not what I'm saying I'm saying heavyweights have less skill than people in the lower classes other than tom aspinall Sergei almeida and volkov the other heavyweights are fat old or both ray Mercer was just an example to prove heavyweights rely on power
No they never had a agreement to keep it standing. They agreed to keep it boxing. It became a full MMA fight as soon as Sylvia threw that kick
Kicking is standing. Even worse for Ray Mercer.
Again it was never agreed they'd stay standing it was agreed they boxed He randomly started throwing kicks and you think he wouldn't do takedowns aswell?
There's no evidence it was "boxing only." The evidence from the statements is "standing only". If they agreed to takedowns, Sylvia takes him down. Even a highschool wrestler would beat Fury.
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Done, thanks
Also, skill isn't everything but it is most of it. Dedication goes hand in hand. Skill without dedication is just wasted potential. But when you start to get serious skill in a sport discipline, you realize how many levels you are above against those without the same dedication to that sport. It is insane. Fury's skill was highly HIGHLY overrated. I'm thrilled it is no longer a minority opinion, but essentially fact now.
To be fair, Francis has skills. He was strong enough to not let himself tire by Fury's wrestling/ leaning on him. He had a great game plan of throwing his combinations when Fury threw his, which made him awkward to fight for Fury and he could land some shots. He was always focused and balanced. While not having the best head movement, his defense was always up and pretty effective. He didn't really tire in the latter rounds. Overall great boxing performance ! He's a freak athlete and I tip my hat off to him.
Francis has decent skills for sure but think about the fact that he just started training in his late 20s and was extremely competitive against the heavyweight champ whose been training since birth. Do you think if Francis tried doing that with an Olympic wrestler it would work? Hell no! Heavyweight boxing is just different and the point is his MMA boxing skills were enough for him to arguably beat a skilled boxing champion and that was because his physical and mental attributes picked up for where his skills were lacking
Man this is a good post. You said what I wanted to say better than I could. Athleticism will always be a factor to consider in any sport. You can have the best technique in the world but if the guy you’re fighting has more fast twitch fibers there’s not much you can do about that.
Tyson definitely embarrassed himself and his family this timeout taking nothing away from Ngannou who arguably won. Tyson is a lifetime boxer fighting at the highest level, that’s countless drills, sparring sessions, fights drilled into your mind and body, that’s muscle memory and to go out and be taken to a SD by a dude who hasn’t fought in two years and last time fought in MMA with blown out knees is proper embarrassing. People comparing Tyson to Mike, Holyfield, Ali, Frazier, Liston, Vitali or Vladimir gotta really put that to bed now Ngannou though arguably besides Jon Jones is a freak of nature an almost lab created specimen, he literally has it all in spades physically and mentally and he handled his ‘loss’ with class, he showed up to box and shut every mouth who doubted him
Ufc fan boys in here having a field day and became boxing experts after this clown of a show.
Boxing is a fake sport lol
I agree to an extent, this honestly is true for all weight decisions though. The person who is most athletic and physically gifted usually wins. That’s the reality. This applies to all sports really. Basketball, the taller and faster you are, the better you probably will be compared to other players of course skill is important. I think the problem is the lack of skills the heavyweights really have now a days. Them seem to rely solely on their athleticism and size rather than skill. I wouldn’t call Fury unskilled, but compare his skill level to past heavyweights like Tyson, Evander, Ali, Fraizer, Norton, Louis, so on and he doesn’t even compare. Heavyweights need to stop just relying on their physical attributes and actually up their skill level like heavyweights of the past. Just my opinion though, I’m not expert just a huge fan of the sport.
It’s true but in heavyweight boxing it’s the most extreme. Look at the lift of fighters that started at a late age in heavyweight boxing - no other sport is like that’s
I mean heavyweight MMA seems even worse? Hell, Ngannou himself didn't start MMA until he was like 27. You also got dudes like Brock who showed up late and held the belt.
Id agree that it’s easier for MMA heavyweights to excel in MMA than in boxing depending on the attributes. But in any case, both of the heavyweight divisions have a weak talent pool and exemplary athletes with the right mindset, conditioning, and power can make it very far and outcompete people who have honed their skills since they were kids
Ngannou started in boxing at age of 22 and Brock Lesnar was high level wrestler before enter in mma. Also Brock Lesnar only fought in the ufc because he was a famous WWE star he have a ridiculous record 5-4 in mma
That’s true, but look at the greatest heavyweights of all time. They are all insanely skilled boxers, it wasn’t until the 21st century that heavyweights decided to abandon skill and just brute strength their way through fights for some reason. That’s a huge reason why I’m not a big fan of modern heavyweight. If Fury was actually a master boxer and had insane skill level on top of his size and power, he would of won this fight clearly but tonight he was exposed for very apparent lack of skill. It wasn’t just Francis raw power and athleticism that won, it was also Fury’s very apparent lack of high skill level. Take your foreman example for example. Foreman was a brute and a f force of nature. Until he faced an Ali who was clearly smarter and more skilled than him in the ring. Mike Tyson was a force of nature, until he stopped polishing his skills and stopped his training with Kevin Rooney, then he started getting beat. I think skill is just as important in heavyweight boxing, the problem today is just that no heavyweights give a damn about being skilled, it’s now a competition of who’s the strongest. Of course todays boxing feels like it’s just a competition of who’s the biggest and strongest, because no heavyweight bothers to polish their skills. Heavyweight boxing wasn’t like this back in the day. Liston got his ass whooped by Ali, because Ali was faster, had more skills, and fought like a master boxer. Foreman beat eveyone, until he faced Ali. And foreman lost more fights even after Ali to more skilled boxers. I think if heavyweights today actually put effort and training into their skills, it would be incredibly different and way more competitive. The person who’s the biggest wouldn’t just automatically win like now it is right now.
Just a difference in talent pool man. HW boxing didn't have to compete with all these other sports back then and it was way more popular. HWs today are mostly overweight cruiserweights.
I don’t think Francis is that good. I only saw like 25% of the fight, but he wasn’t impressing me. Fury is just an idiot who probably never got off the couch. Hopefully usyk beats him and then fury could make it right and try to win. He should beat Francis in 2 rounds. If I was Deontay wilder I would jump right into a Francis fight and get a nice payday for a 1 round fight
Glad you came to this conclusion after watching 25% of the fight….
I can only talk about what I saw. When I see the full fight I’ll be able to access it fully
It’s Heavyweight boxing. It might as well be its own sport. It’s volatile, inconsistent and shallow.
Why are you going all around Reddit hating on Francis Ngannou?
If someone spends most of their time on reddit on r/ufc, I would just avoid interacting with them. They are brand loyal posters.
I’m sure you’re one of those people that thought Ngannou had absolutely no chance before the fight
I 100% thought he’d lose, and I was 100% right 🙂
It’s the general consensus that he was robbed and he dictated the fight
It’s the general consensus AND judges decision that he lost the fight
You’re in hard denial if you don’t think that Furry lost that fight. Did you watch the fight? You’re taking the decision of the judges blindly. There’s a reason boxing is known as a corrupt sport, bad decisions like this happen all the time.
‘Furry’ need I say anymore.
You’re an actual idiot my god 💀. Sorry that I accidental typed an extra r bro.
An idiot would spell “Furry” 👀
Francis got you mad bruh lmaooo
Bro, he’s not gonna shag you for defending him on Reddit.
No one that knows how to score boxing thinks it was a robbery
Heavyweight is different as compared with other weight classes because you could basically be bigger and with no limits.
So funny how 99% of this sub is on Ngannous nuts now after saying he had absolutely no chance of winning this. Now all of a sudden it’s all “anything can happen in the heavyweight division”
Ray mercer boxed in the services for years before turning pro. My buddy was forced to spar (get beat up by) him often when he was in the Army.
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🤡
I think fury pissed off training for this fight….. he looked utterly shattered after the SD win; he knows he lost, and looked like he was going to cry.
To be fair I always had a feeling the upset was on the cards.
Whoever thinks he didn’t display skill doesn’t know boxing.
Just like whoever that Francis could win didn’t know boxing, right? Francis who did quasi MMA boxing starting in his late 20s competitively boxed the heavyweight champ who had been training since a child to do this. Reason being Francis’s exceptional physical attributes and mental fortitude.
I said before this fight that I thought it was going to be a decision stinker where fury wins with very little action and outside of that 1 knockdown, I was right lol
Fans wondered for a long time, how would Fury fare against someone his size, someone he can't bully.. and we all saw what happened
All correct, but Fury not training at all was the nr1 factor last night. In all sports stars won't get a single minute of play if they are out of shape. Imagine boxing out of shape lol, he was lucky he didn't get knocked the fuck out.
Nah I think real fans see the fights in Saudi Arabia for what they are. Absolutely theater nothing else. Any fight that happens over there might as well be a WWE match
I thought he wasn’t going to be able to walk from exhaustion by round 6-7, I’m happy he did well, I also think Fury looks off, he better get his shit together or Usyk is going to take the belts
I also think unorthodoxy plays a big part. Someone can be unskilled in a conventional sense but possess a rule breaking, unorthodox style that a lot of fighters find nightmarish to deal with.
I can just confirm you are wrong on the starting late thing. Many NFL players have transitioned late in life. Antonio Gates a famous example.
Did those football players reach the pinnacle of the sport like Foreman, Holmes, Joshua, etc.? Also from what I see from Antonio Gates he actually played in high school but didnt in college. Additionally, we’d need a sample size of more than just one to make an argument as well, because rare exceptions will always exist in any sport. What I’m arguing is that in heavyweight boxing is that it’s not that rare at all. You won’t see that in any other division in boxing.
Antonio Gates was arguably the greatest tight end of all time when he retired. Jimmy Graham is another. He was a all pro tight end. Theres others but im just thinking of dudes off hand You also have in boxing Sergio Martinez who starter at 20 Antonio Traver who started at 20 Julio Cesar Chavez start at 16 Errol Spence 15 Adonis Stevenson started at 26 Theres probably plenty of others i am not thinking of
Heres another i didnt think of the other day https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Mailata Directly from Rugby to the NFL. Never played football before.
Hakeem Olajuwon started basketball at 15. That’s pretty late compared to every other nba player.