Matt Brown wasn’t alone in picking Tyson Fury to dominate Francis Ngannou in their fight this past Saturday night, but the veteran UFC welterweight was definitely shocked at the result.
Despite competing in his first professional boxing match, Ngannou put on a brilliant performance while scoring the only knockdown in the fight before ultimately losing a controversial split decision. Meanwhile, Fury was effectively embarrassed after he entered the fight as a 14-to-1 favorite with most boxing pundits predicting that he would toy with the less experienced Ngannou and eventually put him away inside 10 rounds.
Instead, Fury looked timid and confused dealing with Ngannou, especially when faced with the kind of power the former UFC heavyweight generates in his punches.
“I was pumping up Tyson Fury,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I thought he was this and that. I’ll tell you what, this reminded me of Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson. A huge upset. Whether Francis won or not, you can talk about that, but the fact that he went to a split decision and arguably won, that’s a win. That’s an upset to the f****** max.
“What we found when Mike Tyson fought Buster Douglas, we found out who Mike Tyson was. We realized he was not the stone cold murderer that was going to walk through everybody that he came across. Buster Douglas stood up to him and fought him like a man and that was all it took. I see that the same here. We found out who Tyson Fury is. He was not the boxer that we thought that he was. I think he took this fight serious. I think he went for it. I think he trained for it, and I think he’s been overrated this whole time. I think I overrated him. I underrated Ngannou and overrated Tyson Fury.”
For all the ways Ngannou shocked the world with his performance, Brown couldn’t help but unleash on Fury when addressing his abysmal showing while facing a newcomer to the sport of boxing.
By all accounts, Fury should have beaten Ngannou in a landslide just based on experience alone but instead he barely survived. Brown believes that says a lot about Fury and the entire heavyweight division in boxing.
“Tyson should have walked through him,” Brown said. “He’s 33-0, undefeated champion. He should have walked through him. This tells me that the level of heavyweight boxing is very low. I don’t care if you’re the greatest athlete in the history of mankind, you should not come in and go to a split decision with the champion.
“That tells me that the whole division and I’m not hating on Tyson — I love the guy, I love his personality, I love everything about him, I’ve always been huge on him — but I think [he’s] just overrated. Nobody should come in their first match and be able to do that. Tyson Fury should have put him away. This absolutely drives me nuts. He fumbled the bag on Saturday night. This should not have been a competitive match and again, I think Tyson took it serious. I think he really trained for it but when he felt Ngannou hit him, we all seen the look in his eyes. He did not want to be in there at that point. He was shocked.”
Considering how close he came to beating the heavyweight champion in his boxing debut, Ngannou will likely be fielding a lot of offers to stick around to compete again — potentially against another top contender like Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder.
In a perfect world, Ngannou would lure Fury into a rematch but “The Gypsy King” was already contracted to clash with Oleksandr Usyk before he ever set foot in the ring this past Saturday night.
No matter the opponent, Brown expects Ngannou to demolish whoever gets thrown at him next because he now considers the entire heavyweight division in boxing an embarrassment to the sport.
“I’m a broken record, the heavyweight division in boxing right now just sucks,” Brown said. “These guys are not what we thought they were and Francis Ngannou just exposed them. If he fights [Anthony Joshua], he’s going to beat AJ’s ass. If he fights [Deontay] Wilder, he’s going to beat Wilder’s ass.
“He’s going to go in and wreck the heavyweight division. He’s going to go fight Fury and he’s going to probably win. I think he’s going to wreck them all. I’m calling it now. Francis Ngannou is going to dominate the heavyweight boxing division because they suck.”