Francis Ngannou might possess the most knockout power in heavyweight history, and he’ll try to put that to good use when he faces off with Tyson Fury in a boxing match in October.
UFC president Dana White once compared Ngannou’s ferocious power to the impact from being hit by a Ford Escort at its top speed. Past opponents like Alistair Overeem, Stipe Miocic and Jairzinho Rozenstruik would probably attest to the sledgehammer-like effect from Ngannou’s punches, which he’ll look to translate into his boxing debut.
Now Fury has faced plenty of knockout artists during his career including three fights against Deontay Wilder, who is arguably the hardest hitter in the heavyweight division. That said, UFC welterweight Matt Brown argues that Ngannou might actually generate even more power than Wilder but that still doesn’t mean he’ll actually land clean on somebody as skilled and technical as Fury.
“To be honest, I would lean towards Francis just because of how he’s built,” Brown explained on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Deontay is obviously built to punch but he’s so much longer. Francis is so much more muscular. I bet on a power scale, Francis probably hits harder. When you get at the end of one of Deontay’s long, hard, straight rights, is it so much harder that it’s not going to knock somebody out? It’s like a nuclear bomb versus a f******* atom bomb. It’s like an AK vs. an AR. They’re both f****** killing you.
“But obviously you have to land that punch, too. It works great against really technical guys up until they’re about f****** Tyson Fury level. Yeah that works great but it doesn’t do so much for you when you’ve got a guy like Tyson Fury that can bob and weave and move like a little guy.”
Fury has also displayed an iron chin with incredible endurance during his career.
There’s no better example than when Fury got blasted by a punch from Wilder in their first encounter back in 2018. Fury ended up face first on the canvas but somehow got back to his feet before the 10 count, which allowed him to continue.
If Wilder couldn’t put Fury down with one punch, Brown has a hard time believing Ngannou — or anybody else for that matter — could do it either but stranger things have happened.
“We would have said the same thing about Deontay Wilder — if he can land that one shot,” Brown said. “Well, he did land that one shot and Tyson got the f*** back up.
“Can Francis land that one shot? He better hit harder than f****** Deontay Wilder did.”
There’s almost no chance that Ngannou will simply outbox Fury so connecting with that immense power really might be his only path to victory. Outside of his ability to score the knockout, Ngannou will be at a disadvantage to Fury in almost every other metric measured for the sport of boxing.
Still, Brown admits that Ngannou’s naivety in boxing could present some interesting problems for Fury because he’s so used to facing far more experienced opponents.
“The biggest advantage that Francis has is Tyson doesn’t know anything about him as a boxer,” Brown said. “He knows what he can do as an MMA fighter but he’s never watched him box before. He’s never seen how he moves in the ring with shoes on. It’s just different.
“Is Francis going to go in there and set things up? Is he going to start with a jab? Is he just going to throw haymakers? Tyson has no idea what to really expect here and that makes a problem for his training camp. What training partners does he bring in? What kind of looks is he getting? Francis has all the video on Fury for years and years of boxing. In that aspect, Francis has a huge advantage.”
One other area where Ngannou might be able to surprise Fury comes down to the way he’s putting everything into his training camp for the fight.
This is the biggest moment of Ngannou’s career and truth be told, he doesn’t really have anything to lose because he’s making his professional boxing debut against the best heavyweight in the world. Meanwhile, Fury has been told repeatedly that he should walk through Ngannou in a boxing match, which is where Brown worries that mistakes could be made.
“I can say from my own experience, my worst fights were the ones where the second I got the call to fight the guy, I thought I got this no problem,” Brown said. “The ones I knew that I was better than the guy. I could site particular, exact times that I lost thinking I was so much better than the guy that it would be easy.
“You don’t get as nervous. You’ve got to be scared of the guy. You’ve got to respect him. You’ve got to go out there knowing there’s a chance [you could lose] and that’s a hard lesson to learn. Unfortunately, I learned it by getting punched up and s***. It’s going to be interesting to see if that’s how it ends up for Fury.”
