Topic: [Boxing] Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou - March 9 - page 14. (Read 2628 times)

I think there's more on the line for AJ though. Ngannou isn't expected to win, and shouldn't on paper, but if AJ actually loses this fight then that seriously knocks him down the pecking order not to mention embarrasses him. AJ has got himself back on track to soon challenge for the belts again but a loss would be devastating. AJ even proclaimed "Every opponent me and Fury have in common, I've knocked them out" recently, but means nothing if Ngannou flattens him. However, if AJ can knock down or stop him then that puts him in front of Tyson with something he couldn't do. AJ really needs this win to get a one up of Fury and sets the fight up between them nicely.


Parker was impressive but Wilder seemed off to me. I think Zhang will either win by KO or Parker on points, but I think Zhang should get a KO. Joe Joyce got a KO against Parker and Zhang absolutely battered Joyce twice and was the first to do so.

Zhang though is a big surprised to the Heavyweight division, but yes, this division is back again, with top and second tier boxers all has the potential to beat each other and fights are unpredictable and there could be surprises like Ngannou given by boxing fans a great chance to beat Joshua if he can land just one power punches and then we will see Joshua's reaction, it could be flashback for Joshua of the first Ruiz fight.

And then the Chinese big man, Zhang proving his win against Joyce is no fluke. And who ever wins here can crack the top 3-4 in the Heavyweight division and then have a chance to fight for the belt next.

I think I made the mistake of calling it an undercard when it should be a co-main event, these two boxers are coming from impressive wins on two former champions they should be given the respect they deserve, yes I voted for Parker but it's not a vote that can be considered a unanimous because Zhang is capable it will go down to who wants it most and who can properly implement a good game plan.
I don't think the boxing community will miss this fight It is always a bigger fight when boxers are coming from impressive performances in their last fights
And we have 4 boxers wanting to be on top, I think we can safely say that the heavyweight glory days are back, there were times that boxing fans preferred to watch and support fights coming from lighter divisions than heavyweight fights.

Zhang vs Parker is also very difficult to predict. We've seen that Zhang left hand has that power and Parker has great lateral movement. So it's a question if Zhang can land that power and or Parker uses his movement to make Zhang misses his power shot.

And Zhang is dangerous in the early rounds and so if Parker can weathered the storm early, avoid that power and then uses his jab to not let Zhang set up his left hand, he might win this fight in the judges score card. But if Zhang in 6 rounds hit Parker, it might be an early fight for him. So the key for Parker is to ouboxed Zhang just like what he did against Wilder to stay away from that big left hand. But for sure this is going to be a great and competitive fight.

Another attraction to this fight is the undercard fight between Zhilei Zhang and Joseph Parker who both come from spectacular wins, Zhang against Joyce and Parker against Wilder and this is for the interim WBO heavyweight title.
These two fighters are now on top of the rank because of their wins against their respective opponents and the two are possible contenders for the winner in the Fury - Usyk fight in case the winner of the Joshua - Ngannou can't agree on the terms.
Parker is my favorite fighter to win against Zhang, I am more impressed by how he beat Wilder than Zhang beating Joyce, but he needs to be careful Zhang possesses a very wicked left straight and he has a good lateral movement.

That's true, but pressure is not always a bad thing. It did work for him pretty nicely in a fight against Fury. Him getting more confident could result in becoming too reckless or overcommitting and getting countered, but hopefully his mma experience will prevent that.
Looking at it from other perspective, he potentially have more in stake right now. The first fight was probably planned as a one off thing, but since he performed surprisingly well, he now could be fast-tracked into being in the top of the top in boxing. But if he gets ridiculed by AJ, then it would be obvious that the first fight was just a fluke and his boxing career could be over.

The press conference was pretty lacklustre and uneventful. They didn't even announce any undercard fighters but they announced them after for some reason:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2ILhu8LhKL/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=fb22a48f-c247-424c-8bad-39e9a7860023
https://www.instagram.com/stories/turkialalshik/3280952149862882476/

Zhilei Zhang v Joseph Parker
    Rey Vargas vs Nick Ball
    Mark Chamberlain vs Gavin Gwynne
    Justis Huni vs Opponent TBC
    Ziyad Almaayouf vs Opponent TBC
    Roman Fury vs Opponent TBC
    Jack McGann vs Opponent TBC

Zhang/Parker is the only one I'm really interested in. I would have said Zhang blitzes Parker but Joseph did very well against Wilder but I'd back Zhang to beat him anyway. The winner of that should get a title shot, but they announced during the press conference that they're wanting to make AJ/Fury next but both fighters probably need to win, or at the very least AJ needs to make it past Ngannou.




I think he's going to be far more dangerous in this fight. The pressure of his first fight is off his shoulders and he knows what he can and can't do now. He's shown he can go the distance with the current heavyweight champion and on paper Tyson should be a tougher fight than AJ. Ngannou said he wasn't using full power against Fury either as he was worried about gassing out early. It's up to you whether you believe him or not but he didn't seem to be swinging as wildly as he usually does in the UFC so now he knows he can go the full 10 rounds I think we'll probably see a lot more power this time.

I've checked the odds and to no surprise, AJ is a favourite:
AJ to win: 1.26
Francis to win: 3.85

So even know he's an underdog, according to bookies Ngannou is not without a chance, less than x4 pay out is not a massive one.

I think Francis will approach this fight with much more confidence than in the first fight with Fury, but I'm not sure if that will work in his favour or the opposite - if he gets relaxed too much, he could get punished.
He definitely looked more confident than AJ during the face off. I almost suspect Anthony acts like he's a bit afraid and withdrawn on purpose to get Francis to feel overconfident and make more mistakes.
Link to the face off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbkuzGl-m60

Francis is now more popular than Jon Bones.
Mike Tyson I think is not going to be Francis' side anymore. Since it's going to be presented again to the richest country Middle East, they would want it quality.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/other-sport/boxing/what-time-anthony-joshua-v-31882307

Press conference is going live in London soon at 5pm GMT. Watch it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oES2Ke6bi80

Looks like Francis was on a film set the other day so I guess we're getting another Hollywood style trailer like we did for the Fury fight:

https://twitter.com/francis_ngannou/status/1746618828518535542
https://www.instagram.com/stories/francisngannou/3280277891973999596/

This was a bit of a lazy excuse from Fury in my opinion. There's plenty of UFC fights for them to watch and given Francis usually just stays on his feet and boxes they should have know what to expect, though Francis did surprise everyone with how much he looked like a proper boxer. If a casual was watching that fight and had no idea who either were if you asked them who was the proper boxer or current heavyweight champ I'm sure most would have picked Francis.


As much as I love Francis and thought he deserved a draw at least, it is ridiculous them ranking him in the top ten after just one fight and a fight that he lost on paper. Sure, rank him after five fights or something but not one. I believe they have a panel of judges that rank opponents but the WBC is notoriously dodgy and they ranked him just for their cut of his fights when they sanction them. Lot's of people call them We Be Corrupt haha. The head of the WBC said this as his justification:


https://talksport.com/sport/1621594/wbc-president-francis-ngannou-ranking-tyson-fury-fight/

Which I guess is probably true but you have to prove that in the ring.

Mauricio Sulaiman also went into the ratings criteria they use in this podcast at the 7:43 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wptfSZ-mWs

I guess if you take into considertation his UFC status that that at least gives him a springboard. It's not like he's some random guy from the street, but at the end of the day it's just about the sanctioning fees for the WBC.

According to Fury himself, the poor performance was not to underestimating Francis, but more due to the fact they had no material (footage of any Ngannou's boxing fights) to use to analyse Francis' style. Plus, I think he admitted that he was simply better than anyone expected, which is true.
Joshua is definitely in way more comfortable position in this regard. He knows what to expect and will not underestimate him. Then again, Francis and his team could surprise everyone again and present a completely different style than in the Fury fight.
I too favour Joshua to win, but it won't necessarily be a walk in the park.


How on earth is he ranked that high (or at all). He did do very well, but it was still a loss. Do they award ranking points for style etc?

He requested a few things, but not all just for himself but the betterment of all UFC fighters. There's a really good article that lays out what happened during his contact dipsute with the UFC and what he got from the PFL https://www.espn.co.uk/mma/story/_/id/37702902/why-francis-ngannou-left-ufc-signed-pfl-contract-deal


Technically, no. You just have to be a top 15 ranked opponent to challenge for a belt and Ngannou is currently ranked 10th by the WBC so theoretically he could challenge for the title, which is crazy considering he's above Hrgovic, Joyce and Dubois. The WBC could choose not to sanction it or make Fury fight another mandatory though. I'm sure people would complain if they gave Ngannou a title shot so early but I think if he can get few wins under his belt then there's no reason why not. AJ is currently ranked at number two so if Francis beats AJ then that says a lot and if Francis can beat the number two then some may argue that makes him the number one contender. The WBC will likely make AJ the mandatory for Fury if he wins against Ngannou but it will be interesting if AJ loses. There's also the chance that the belts get vacated after the Fury/Usyk fight so they don't have to defend them against their chosen mandatories.

I still have an Anthony Joshua signed glove that I bought at auction a while back when he was World Champ. With every loss I think the value of that framed glove goes down. I have no choice but to cheer him on

I think Fury could have gone into his fight with Ngannou unprepared, maybe he underestimated him. I think Joshua will win this fight comfortably. He has no choice but to stay 100%  focused in every pre fight training camp and be ready for every fight. If he loses many more his career is over.

As far as I remember, Ngannou was complaining not only on low salary, but basically wanted a freedom of action and asked UFC for full medical insurance. UFC does give some medical insurance, but Francis wanted it to be something like - he break neck, UFC support him fully till pension. We will never know full story of their behind the scene games. Personally, if Francis got 10 millions for fight against  Fury, I dont think that UFC were able to pay him so much for a fight. That is it.

Isnt Ngannou has to pass some opponents first, and get some rating to be able to fight for belts? Now he looks more like a talented guy from the crowd that box on the same level as champions. Now Fury fights with Usyk and all the belts are on the line. There are always obligatory belt applicants. Would boxing organizations really allow those who are in line wait, and let Ngannou out of turn?

Exactly what I think will be the plan for Francis. KO Joshua and give the judges no chance to steal this victory for him again. Francis also know what the critics say, he will want to shock and shut them up.

Francis knows this and already has fired a warning shot saying,
'I've heard he doesn't have a chin'

Francis was able to knocked down Fury who is really strong, the chance of him knocking down and Out Anthony Joshua is big. This fight can really be Francis's first win.

According to Sport Business Journal the purses are £31 million for Joshua and £16 million for Ngannou.


Doesn't matter if the UFC is involved with their boxing fights as well. Dana could have had his cake and eaten it too if he just allowed Francis to box. Ngannou was pretty open that he would be happy to do both and give Dana/UFC a cut as a cross promotion. If they can do it for Connor then they can surely do it for Francis too. Dana has shot himself in the foot letting Francis go. Ngannou was one of the biggest stars the UFC had but now he's the biggest PFL star and he hasn't even fought for them yet. Francis doing boxing alongside MMA just brings in more eyes from the boxing world and makes Francis an even bigger star that could transcend the sport. If Francis does well or even beats AJ then he's going to become one of the biggest combat athletes in the world if he isn't already. If he does beat AJ then he'll probably be fighting for belts very soon. The UFC has lost out on all that promo

Yeah, it might be hard for the judges to give the nod for Ngannou if the fight goes to distance, similar to what we've witnessed in the Fury fight. There are some boxing fans that thought that Fury didn't do enough to win in that fight and that Francis with the strength of his knockdown, could have won that fight.

And here and with AJ questionable chin, chances are, if he hit that one punch to the chin, then maybe we can see a KO win.

So it make sense to go on this route and bet by KO instead of a straight up ML at 4.20. At least Ngannou has control of on he is going to win, instead of letting the judges, that might screw him again.

5.60 KO for me too, I think if Ngannou will win, it would be by KO. AJ showed some weakness in his previous fights, while AJ are trying to make a strategy on how to defeat Ngannou, I'm sure the camp of Ngannou also understands that and will focus on their own strategy. With heavyweight fights from KO artist, going to judges decision is less likely, so it should be a KO.

As Joshua has a lot of fight time in the ring, I think he could make the match last longer and go to a decision than go fight toe to toe vs Ngannou which would def by a bad proposition for Joshua.  I might go for Ngannou via dec at 16.  And it'sgonna go higher as the build up to the even intensifies.  Omg it's gonna be a so good...  Fresh off the heels of Ngannou's great performance vs Fury. 

I think 5.60 via KO doesn't have that much value.  I'd rather take it straight at 4.20.  Not a big difference.