Tyson Fury is sharing details on a potential Francis Ngannou superfight after rumors of the match-up leaked earlier this week.
Is Tyson Fury fighting Francis Ngannou next?
Fury’s manager recently teased a massive announcement for Fury’s next fight, one that would reportedly change boxing as a sport. While fights against Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua would be massive events, they’re standard top dog affairs. Only an inter-sport showdown like Fury vs. Ngannou would really qualify as a sports changer to us.
Now Fury is speaking out on the rumored match-up with former UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou. When asked on the Out of Interest podcast if there were any mixed martial arts fighters willing to step into the ring with him under boxing rules, he pointed to “The Predator.”
“Yes, Francis Ngannou,” Fury replied. “There’s been a lot of talk of me and Ngannou fighting each other, and he wants to come to boxing, he wanted to fight me. He’s been talking a lot of stuff on Instagram, wants to fight. Was even at one of my last fights. Got in the ring, confronted me. There’s potential, potential. We’ve had a lot of offers come in from the Middle East at the moment to host that fight this summer.”
Fury also said he sees nothing wrong with the current rise in celebrity and Instagram boxing.
“I know there’s a lot of people that don’t like all the celebrities coming into a single sport,” he admitted. “But I think it’s fantastic because you’ve got guys that are YouTubers or TV celebrities, whatever, they’re coming into boxing, making money, bringing eyes to the game. So the more people that watch a sport or an event, it makes it easier for the young kids who don’t have fame to come up and get better paydays and draw more attention.”
“Maybe today they want to watch me brother Tommy and Jake Paul fight. But tomorrow they might say ‘Well I’ve watched that fight, what about this kid, let’s watch him. So the more eyes you bring to the sport, the better. No matter where you come from and what you are … You’ve got crossover sports, crossover fights happening, and that creates a lot of attention which means a lot of views, which equals a lot of money.”
“The Gypsy King” made it clear, though, that he would not be the one crossing over into a new sport.
“Do I want to go in the cage and roll around with some absolute crank? No. No thank you,” he said. “I make big boy money in the boxing ring. So if any of these guys want to make big boy money and they want to fight the champ, then I suggest getting some boxing gloves on, come fight me under Queensberry rules, and make your biggest payday ever.”