By: Sean Crose
WBC and lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will reportedly next be fighting former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. ESPN reports that the bout will go down October 28th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and that the WBC has yet to announce whether or not Ngannou will become it’s heavyweight titlist should he best Fury in the ring. Indeed, few details are available at the moment, as an official fight announcement has yet to be made. Ngannou, though clearly a high level mixed martial artist, has never fought in the ring before. Fury had previously been in talks to face WBA, IBF and WBO titlist Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world, but those negotiations fell through.
Fury will obviously enter the fight the considerable favorite due to Ngannou’s inexperience, and his own impressive resume of 33-0-1. Still, crossover fights between former mixed martial artists of note and boxers tend to draw in eyeballs and dollars. While the fights generally occur in the ring rather than the octagon, and frequently end with the former octagon great laid out, there seems to be a considerable number of people who generally want to see if the mixed martial artist can “pull it off” in these instances. With that being said, high level boxing pays much better than high level mixed martial arts. What’s more, a mixed martial artist who puts on a game showing against a boxer in the ring rightfully tends to earn respect rather than derision. Plus, one never does know when it comes to combat sports.
Without doubt, the fight will likely be a pay per view event produced by Fury promoters Frank Warren and Bob Arum, along with ESPN, which broadcasts Fury’s fights in the States. Whether or not Fury will end up in the ring with Usyk at some point in the near future remains to be seen.
