Francis Ngannou has a singular focus for his next potential boxing match: The man who welcomed him to the ring, Tyson Fury.
This past Saturday saw Fury drop a unanimous decision to Oleksandr Usyk in another thrilling contest in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fury is now 0-2 against Usyk after losing a split decision to the heavyweight champion this past May.
That’s not the only notable recent split for Fury. When Ngannou—a former UFC heavyweight champion and current PFL star—ventured into boxing, he was immediately thrown to the wolves against the then-undefeated Fury in October 2023. Ngannou shocked the world by knocking Fury down and arguably doing enough to score a massive upset, but two of the three judges scored the fight in Fury’s favor.
Following the Usyk-Fury rematch, Ngannou was asked if he’d like to see Fury fight fellow British standout Anthony Joshua, but he has his own intentions of taking on “The Gypsy King.”
“What I want to see now is Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou,” Ngannou told Pro Boxing Fans. “That’s all what matters for me.”
Ngannou’s inspiring performance against Fury allowed him to book a bout with Joshua the following March that wasn’t nearly as suspenseful. The far more experienced Joshua rocked Ngannou and then put him down for the count in Round 2, leaving Ngannou winless in two boxing appearances.
Still, he’s long maintained that a rematch with Fury is what he wants, even after a knockout of Renan Ferreira this past October that served as both his PFL debut and his return to MMA.
As for how he felt about Saturday’s scoring controversy with Fury adamant that he’d won the fight, Ngannou agreed that it should have been closer than the unanimous 116-112 Usyk scorecards suggested.
“I think the fight was pretty close,” Ngannou said. “I would have scored the fight closer than that, maybe Usyk still wins. I mean, at the end of the fight I wasn’t sure that anybody is the winner because everybody could have been the winner. From my scorecard, it was closer than that.”
Ngannou gave no support for the AI judging gimmick introduced Saturday. An automated judge was part of the broadcast, though not the official scoring, and had the fight 118-112 for Usyk. Like the actual judges, the AI heavily favored Usyk in the final seven rounds, giving none to Fury. The odd 118 score for Usyk is explained by a pair of 10-10 scores, one in Round 1 and the other in Round 12.
For Ngannou, the technology just isn’t where it needs to be yet to be taken seriously.
“AI might be intelligent, but AI don’t understand the sport properly,” Ngannou said. “It’s a man sport, it’s not a machine sport. I think AI is still, regardless of everything, it’s still a machine that operate automatically and score based on some—I don’t think AI has all the specifics or the date to score a boxing match today. .. It’s still a trial. We can’t take that for credit.”
