Tyson Fury Admits to Francis Ngannou Being His Toughest Opponent in a Decade

While Tyson Fury believes his victory over Francis Ngannou was well deserved, “The Gypsy King” can’t help but give his opponent due credit.

Ngannou was a +800 underdog going into his boxing clash against Fury in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Oct. 28. The former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight king took Fury to a hard-fought decision, even scoring the lone knockdown of the bout in round 3. However, Ngannou ended up on the short side of a split decision that a majority of fans and pundits believe should have gone the other way.

Fury has now admitted that Ngannou gave him the toughest test in the past 10 years of his career. The WBC champ claims he didn’t underestimate Ngannou in any way but had a lack of material to research when it came to the Cameroonian’s boxing.

However, “The Gypsy King” believes he outboxed Ngannou throughout the fight, barring the third round knockdown.

“No, didn’t underestimate him… We didn’t know how good he was or how bad he was,” Fury told iFL TV. “There was no footage of him – I’d never seen the man fight before as a boxer – and that was it. He was a lot more awkward than I thought he’d be. … He was an awkward man.

“I don’t take anything away from him. He gave me a better fight than all the boxers did in the last 10 years. I think that’s been the toughest fight I’ve had for years – not so much my toughest fight for years, but maybe he won the 10-8 round, and maybe he won one other round. But other than that, I was just boxing him and he couldn’t really close the distance down on me. At points it was tough, but not so much the other way.

“I’m not a boxing judge, but I can clearly see he didn’t win the fight by the punch stats. If he would have won the fight, they would have given it to him. It wasn’t my own show, was it?”