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Anyone watched the Fury-Ngannou fight? Spoilers below.
As an MMA fan: what the fuck? We're kinda used to the unreasonable effectiveness of Francis Ngannou (Rozenstruik is a tenured kickboxer, for context. So was Overeem) and he has a general reputation as a very fast learner but this is kind of ridiculous.
Before the fight, even fans of his were mainly glad he was going to get a boxing style payday, despite the likely KO.
I almost suspect Saudi shenanigans but they're having Fury-Usyk so it wouldn't be in their interests. I guess Fury's used to tiring people in the clinch and Francis' famous strength + greater experience clinching turned the tables. It was absurd how he threw him around at some points. But Francis looked good even outside that.
Ngannou went into MMA because the skill level was seen as much more favorable for a late starter. But, as a latecomer, he beat multiple strikers, submitted wrestlers, adapted so much to his one serious loss that Stipe Miocic looked like he had nothing for him, wrestlefucked Gane...him going straight into boxing or being discovered as a teen is the biggest what-if in combat sports.
Rozenstruik is not a good kickboxer and MMA is very different striking-wise due to small gloves. MMA has tons of wannabe kickboxer types like MVP, Shara the one-eyed dagestani, blood diamond etc who never were good enough to win belts in major organisations at weight classes that mattered.
Stipe lost the second time around due to a stupid team on his part which made him weigh in at 234 instead of 250, thwarting his wrestling game. Ngannou does have a great chin on him. His coach is also really smart, eric coached Sean Strickland to a championship in an even more difficult division last month.
Remember, this is heavyweight where the worst of the worst fight. Ngannou would lose to most people if he straight-up boxed. Mousasi beat Kyotaro once, does that make Mousasi a better kickboxer than Kyotaro? no, styles make fights. Ngannou did well, Tyson did poorly and it is all heavyweight. This is not me saying it, the single greatest MMA fighter in my opinion, is GSP who regurgitated this on JRE once and how belts and legacies are constructs that exist just for selling PPVs and getting gullible people to invest in the sport.
Someone like Yoel Romero or Brock Lesnar were much better physical specimens than him and they would be much bigger what ifs. One off matches at heavyweights do not and will never mean much.
Maybe partly, but Ngannou looked much better as a wrestler in the second fight. Ngannou also carried his adaptations forward so I'm inclined to give him some credit: he became much more circumspect in general and wrestled Gane to a decision, the went the distance with Fury. Before the second Stipe fight that'd seem like a bad thing to bet on.
He also came in much more prepared for Fury than anyone expected so, at this point, I'm going to say he's a just very adaptable, trainable fighter.
I think HW has gotten better but yes, UFC HW is the best place for an athletic late starter with cinderblock hands and a good chin.
IMO that doesn't change that basically everyone expected Fury to do him like Wilder. That doesn't mean he's going to go beat Usyk or Joshua or have a long boxing career but you're underselling everyone's shock at seeing Francis come out disciplined and double jab, stance switch and clinch his way to a moral victory over 10 rounds (I think he took 3,7, & 8 but the rest are dubious)
Brock in MMA I grant because of the diverticulitis which hangs over his career. Romero...Romero had a long career in multiple combat sports. I don't see as big a what-if? What if he came to MMA earlier? I guess. But that's the thing about people who have mature skills in another sport: that's kind of their bread and butter, so it's harder to conceive of them as the same fighter if they just didn't do it.
lol agree with you on most things here. Any division beyond 170 has large gaping holes, MW and above lack decent wrestlers. Romero and Brock both were fairly late to MMA and Brock never even trained at a good camp like romero did. What I meant was that both were way better athletes with actual backgrounds to make it big but had age/health issues cut them short.
HW is still and will always be trash simply because very few people are 6'3 or above, plus the ones that have any semblance of physical gift will just prefer some other sport with more pay and less direct CTE.
Francis is also quite smart in the sense of who he trains with, he left MMA factory Paris for xtreme couture and that was a smart move.
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I had Fury ahead on points and he barely looked fazed when knocked-down compared to the times when he was knocked-down by Wilder, but it was an embarrassing performance.
I saw a post-fight /r/boxing comment to the effect of: "This fight is boxing's 9/11."
"Unreasonably effective" is a great way to describe Ngannou. We've gone from "hahaha how is MMA real?! Just punch hard" to "hahaha how is boxing real?! Just punch hard". We've gone from "MMA-fighters stand no chance in boxing" to "Ngannou vs. Wilder/Joshua when and what excuse will Wilder/Joshua provide while ducking?"
Fury has long been DYEL skinny-fat, but it actually annoyed me a bit this time seeing him juxtaposed against Ngannou in the ring. The lack of fucks given is almost offensive. If I were Fury and cared about my lEgAcY in addition to other con$ern$, I'd blast a steroid cycle, eat some Ubereem horse meat, and/or take a Lebron-style trip to South Beach before unifying the belts against Usyk. Then re-match with Ngannou and deliver a convincing defeat.
Wilder definitely knocked more brain cells loose. But it feels like Fury was still wary of Ngannou's power even before the KD (the first time he landed was in R2) and Ngannou was much stronger than Wilder in the clinch
But yeah, I think a close split decision is fair if humiliating. The specific rounds on the scorecard? Well, there's always something with the boxing judges.
At this point both are thankfully aligned for him. He can't lose after this or he's hurting his purse as much as his legacy. I wouldn't be surprised if he pushed the Usyk fight to train and recover more.
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I'm a boxing fan, not an MMA fan, and I didn't watch it but I get the impression that Fury figured this was just going to be a warm-up and didn't take it as seriously as he probably should have, especially since it wasn't a sanctioned event and didn't count for everything. The other part of it is that boxers these days aren't as athletic overall as MMA guys so the clinching strategy doesn't work as well. Like you said, MMA guys have more experience in the clinch so they aren't tired out as easily, but they're also better able to avoid the clinch, though I don't know if this was really part of it in this match since I didn't see it. Most boxing since Tyson has just been big, lumbering guys who try to overpower each other and hope the other guy gets tired out. This is in contrast to boxers from, say, the 60s, who were actually able to bob and weave and land punches due to skill and not due to simply tiring the other guy out. It seems like every time I watch a boxing match, no matter the level, they all end in TKOs after one guy gets ground down to the point that he can no longer defend himself.
Yep, heavy hands podcast and Jack Slack have the same analysis of it. Had fury just outboxed him instead of trying to get him out early, he would have won easily.
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Isn't this the story of Fury's life? I can't count how many times I've heard this.
Yeah, that'd be a bad plan. It took Stipe being a much better boxer AND outwrestling him AND Ngannou throwing recklessly to wear out Francis in the first fight and, even near-dead from exhaustion, he still didn't get KOed or submitted.
He rarely gets rocked, even with 4-oz gloves. In fact, Stipe thinking he rocked him with a counter is what got him KOed in their rematch
I don't know if he watched old tape of Francis from the first Stipe fight or what, but he's learned to be more measured and patient and not punch himself out. If Fury wanted to wear him down he was gonna have to work harder than waiting for Ngannou to come to him and he didn't.
Stipe was also 50-60 lbs lighter given how much weight ngannou cuts, that is like 3 weight classes
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