Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury plans to retire from the “sweet science” with a victory over interim titleholder Dillian Whyte in their upcoming pay-per-view (PPV) main event on April 23 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
But that doesn’t mean he’s completely done with combat sports.
“We’ve got Francis Ngannou, he’s a big guy, a big dangerous guy,” Fury told The MMA Hour. “I’d love to see, people going on, ‘Oh, it’s not a fair fight in 10-ounce gloves,’ and that’s correct. It wouldn’t be a fair fight in 10-ounce gloves because like [Daniel] Cormier said recently, he said Francis Ngannou is a much cruder version of Deontay Wilder, and we all know what happened there. So I think if we’re doing four-ounce gloves, he’d have a bit more chance of knocking me out, but then again, I’d have a bit more chance of knocking him out also. So it makes for an exciting fight. And I will try to come in at my heaviest for that fight. I’ll try to come in over 300 pounds. Just to nail him to the canvas with one solid punch.”
Ngannou is the current UFC heavyweight champion but is planning to set sail after healing from his recent knee injury, though it’s not yet clear if “The Predator” will be able to overcome the “championship clause” in his existing contract.
Either way, UFC President Dana White doesn’t think Ngannou stands much of a chance against Fury (and neither do the sports books).
“It’s a really bad idea for Francis – a really bad idea,” White said in an interview with Barstool Sports.
But what about Ngannou’s vaunted one-punch knockout power?
“So did Deontay Wilder. He had that one-punch (knockout) power too,” White said.
“I don’t count that as a real boxing fight,” Fury continued. “That’s not a boxing fight. That’s gonna be a ‘special’ fight. That will be in a cage in four-ounce gloves, in Las Vegas, at the Raiders Stadium. I will have retired from competitive, championship boxing and I’ll be ready to do the crossover fights completely. He won’t be the UFC heavyweight champion anymore, I won’t be the WBC heavyweight champion anymore, but I will still be the lineal heavyweight champion because they can’t take that from me!”
Whyte can on April 23, so until that fight is complete, Fury vs. Ngannou is just talk.