Anticipation is growing ahead of the showdown between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, as the worlds of boxing and UFC collide in Riyadh.
A title may not be on the line in Saudi Arabia next month, but Fury highlighted just how much he has to lose should Ngannou claim a seemingly unlikely victory in the Middle East. But the Gypsy King remains confident, and is willing to fight Ngannou in the cage.
Despite being 6’4″ and weighing around 280lb outside of his UFC bouts where he had to cut under 265lb, Ngannou was the smaller man when he went head-to-head with 6’9″ Fury. The pair last met over a year ago at Wembley Stadium, where they verbally agreed to fight once the MMA star was out of his restrictive contract.
Fury, who was his usual flabby self once he had removed his shirt and jacket, said, “To get to this point is astonishing. I’m honoured to be part of it, I’m honoured Francis is part of it. I don’t underestimate anyone; if I go to the boozer and get into a brawl with a drunken guy, he’s going to hit me and he might knock me out so why wouldn’t I prepare 100 per cent for an absolute killing machine? I will give Francis the respect he deserves as a warrior, a man and a world champion.”
Ngannou added, “I’ve had the dream of being a boxer since i was a kid; not just to box but to box the guy at the top of the mountain. This thing is so big, I can’t stop thinking about it. This is history about to be made; it’s something I didn’t see coming, even though my dream was there, I didn’t see it being one of the biggest events in the world. Nobody knows exactly what is going to happen but what I know for sure is I’ll be out there hunting for this guy’s head to take it off, I can guarantee that.”
Fury and Ngannou’s fight has proven controversial with boxing purists, who believe that the Brit should be facing Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed title. But he is expected to pocket a massive eight-figure payout which is touted to be a career-high, totalling over the £25million he made for fighting Whyte in Wembley last year.
Meanwhile, MMA fans are delighted to see Ngannou, who struggled with a brutal UFC deal that saw him earning considerably less than his boxing counterparts, finally get a chance to make eight-figures. He was paid a base purse of just $600,000 for his last world title defence against Ciryl Gane in January of last year, while Fury would earn almost 40 times that number.