When Tyson Fury stepped into the ring on October 28, 2023, the world of boxing was in a state of balance. Despite lacking the glory or popularity of the Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali eras, modern boxing had its own heavyweight icon. The undefeated Fury, the lineal champion, carried the reputation of professional boxing with him as he stepped towards MMA legend Francis Ngannou. Moments later, boxing’s reputation lay alongside Fury on the canvas, staring up at a man, and a sport, that nobody saw coming.
Francis Ngannou was born in the small village of Batié, Cameroon. His parents were extremely poor and divorced when he was six years old, forcing him to move in with his aunt. Because of such financial hardship, Ngannou started working in a sand mine at age ten.
As he grew up, Ngannou was unsuccessfully recruited by several gangs. Ngannou’s father had a notorious reputation as a street fighter, but Ngannou decided instead to pursue boxing. He was inspired by the stories he’d heard of Mike Tyson, although he had no access to television and didn’t even know what his idol looked like.
At age 22, he started training, though he was hindered by illness. At 26, he journeyed more than 3,000 kilometers to Morocco and attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. He was stopped six times, either jailed or abandoned in the desert as a result. Despite not knowing how to swim, Ngannou kept trying to reach the ocean and the future that lay beyond it.
A year after leaving Cameroon, Ngannou made it through Morocco. He boarded a raft headed for Spain, where he was jailed for two months and then released. Now undocumented and homeless, Ngannou continued to follow his plan. A French-speaker, Ngannou made his way to Paris, where he slept in a parking garage and looked for a boxing gym.
Instead, he was recruited into the world of mixed martial arts. Ngannou’s gym, MMA Factory, knew they had something special on their hands. Ngannou started fighting in France and around Europe. Four years after arriving in Paris, Ngannou signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world’s premier MMA promotion.
In 2021, after another four years, Francis Ngannou became the world heavyweight champion, widely acknowledged as the scariest man on the planet. Ngannou’s nuclear power and indomitable strength saw him capture the UFC title at UFC 260 following a knockout win over legendary champion Stipe Miocic.
Behind a punch measured as the hardest in the world, Ngannou made himself a champion. But his original dream, to be a champion in boxing, remained unfulfilled. Unsatisfied with the terms of the contract offered by the UFC, Ngannou relinquished his belt and left the company to sign with the Professional Fighters League.
The PFL granted all of Ngannou’s contractual desires. Ngannou will earn more than ten million dollars in each of his next three MMA fights. He also secured a multi-million dollar guarantee for all of his future MMA opponents. He was named equity owner and chairman of PFL Africa, the leading MMA organization on the continent.
This position allows Ngannou to fulfill a longtime dream of building boxing and MMA gyms across Africa. The Francis Ngannou Foundation is already establishing multisport facilities in Cameroon, as well as providing the area with school materials and COVID-19 relief supplies. As Ngannou continues to fight and earn money, those efforts will only increase. Ngannou has long been vocal about African potential to produce more MMA greats, and he’s committed to providing those opportunities to as many people as possible.
PFL granted Ngannou’s financial requests, but they also allowed him to box. Boxing was a way into the international spotlight, but it also presented Ngannou with potentially massive paydays.
Ngannou wasted no time. He called out Tyson Fury, the undefeated lineal heavyweight champion. Then, Ngannou found Mike Tyson, the boxing immortal who is also Fury’s namesake. Tyson agreed to train Ngannou, and the Fury fight came to fruition.
This was another in a recent pattern of UFC fighters entering the boxing ring. Most were aged and formerly retired, and all had left the UFC. Most that had previously fought had lost, many suffering embarrassment at the hands of former YouTuber Jake Paul.
As such, no one gave Ngannou more than a puncher’s chance. But when you hit like Ngannou does, a puncher’s chance is a pretty good one. Tyson Fury learned that exact lesson in the third round when he stepped forward with a careless 1-2 combination. Ngannou promptly detonated a left hook that bounced off the side of Fury’s head. Fury turned and fell to the canvas with blood on his forehead and a look of shock on his face. He looked up at Ngannou, a hulking figure who smiled and danced in front of him.
Although Fury got up, he looked shocked and shaky. Clearly uncomfortable standing in front of Ngannou, Fury stayed far behind his jab for the rest of the fight. Ngannou continued to bring pressure, throwing heavy shots and hurting Fury again in the eighth round. When the final round started, Ngannou was listed as the favorite on sports betting websites around the globe.
Fury looked concerned as the judges read out a controversial result: Fury was declared the winner by a narrow one-point split decision, the closest margin of victory possible in a boxing match. Despite technically losing, Ngannou and the world understood that the real winner of this fight was Cameroonian.
Like one of the three ringside judges, most fans scored the fight for Ngannou. The consensus online seems to be that Ngannou was robbed of a win. Tyson Fury, who recently pushed back his February title unification bout against Oleksandr Usyk, may have suffered permanent damage to his reputation. Ngannou may forever be a shadow on his legendary career.
Adversely, Ngannou staked his claim to the boxing world’s spotlight and became an international megastar overnight. The WBC ranked Ngannou as the #10 heavyweight in the world following the fight, despite Ngannou technically being 0-1 as a professional boxer.
Fan perspective on boxing as a sport has forever changed. The “Boxing vs. MMA” debate, which has raged for the last decade or so, may have concluded. MMA’s penchant for short, exciting fights has established a hold on a much younger audience, making it feel as though boxing is on the way out. A Fury dissection of MMA’s biggest and baddest would have been valuable ammunition for those promoting boxing above MMA, but Ngannou’s performance accomplished the opposite, providing an argument towards MMA being the sport containing the world’s premier combatants.
Despite MMA’s popularity, MMA athletes previously had minimal success in boxing. But when Ngannou’s left hand bounced off Fury’s head, the past was forgotten. “Baddest Man on the Planet”, a title that was used by both boxing and MMA’s heavyweight champions, was now synonymous with Francis Ngannou and MMA. Fans, and Tyson Fury, now understood the difference between boxing and a real fight.
Ngannou is now preparing for a March 8 boxing match against former two-time WBO, IBF and WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. Joshua is a fellow power puncher with serious star power, and the winner will likely have a shot at the undisputed heavyweight championships against the winner of Fury-Usyk. As such, the eyes of the world will be on Ngannou when March 8 rolls around.
Joshua, whose chiseled physique is almost equal to Ngannou’s, is a former Olympic gold medalist. Many experts predict his hard-hitting style will be harder for Ngannou to adapt to than Fury’s box-and-clinch routine. However, Joshua’s chin has been exposed in previous fights, and we’ve yet to see Joshua fight anyone nearly as powerful as Ngannou. It’ll be interesting to see how Joshua reacts to being the smaller man, a role he’s historically unfamiliar with.
With the winner likely to see a title shot in their future, all eyes will be glued to this massive heavyweight showdown. A knockout finish is very possible. Regardless, heavyweight boxing will likely never be the same. It’s a stage as big as any, but Ngannou has repeatedly proved himself on the world’s biggest stages. A win against a great like Joshua would add another chapter to an incredible life story and elevate Francis Ngannou even further into superstardom.
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