Ngannou loses despite knocking down Fury in style

Former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou had to settle for the second seat in Saudi Arabia after suffering a split decision defeat to Tyson Fury in their epic clash on Saturday. The Cameroonian did the work and had many rooting for him once the fight started as he proved the better between the two but the judges saw something else.

Obtaining a knockdown against the WBC heavyweight champion in round 3 turned those in the arena on their heads as none, at least the majority did not expect it that way. But just like in such previous encounters, the boxers often had a way to stay on a clinch victory. That was exactly what happened as the final scores read 95-94 for Ngannou by judge one. Judge three got it 95-94 for Fury with the decisive one coming from Judge Two who got it 96-93 for the Brit.

The final statistics according to CompuBox surely favoured Ngannou but the results didn’t. Fury landed 71 of his 223 punches earning a 32% accuracy. Ngannou on the other hand landed 59 of 231 which is 26%. However, Ngannou had a 37-32 edge in power landed and scored a knockdown in round 3.

Despite the result not going his way, Ngannou felt he had done enough to spur him on to prepare and takeover the sport as he had done with UFC. Speaking in a post-fight interview, the Cameroonian said he is preparing to “take over”.

“I’m feeling great. I’m very happy. It didn’t go my way. I want to thank Riyadh Season for giving me the opportunity to prove people wrong once again. I might be wounded, but I can bite. I’m ready to fight any time soon. We can run it back again and I’m sure I’ll get better. This is my first boxing match, I’m not using it as an excuse. At first, I was nervous, this new sport. Now I know I can do it,” Ngannou told TNT Sports.

“My training camp was only three and a half months and I came into this with an injury. But I don’t want to give excuses. I will look at what I can do next to improve my game to come back even better. I’m getting ready to come here and take over.”