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Tyson Fury has final warning for Francis Ngannou
Tyson Fury wants Francis Ngannou to avoid any shenanigans in their fight this Saturday. For his first post-UFC appearance, Ngannou crosses over from mixed martial arts to boxing against a fellow heavy hitter in Fury. Throughout most of his career, Plan A for the ‘Predator’ was to knock his opponent out, which he has done to names such as Alistair Overeem, Cain Velasquez and Stipe Miocic. Ngannou has set his sights on doing the same to Fury as his previous opponents, but if Plan A fails, he needs a Plan B.
And Plan B better not include any MMA moves, says Fury.
Fury to Ngannou: No MMA in this fight!
As Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou arrived in Saudi Arabia, the pair did some interviews on the red carpet of the grand arrivals ceremony. In an interview with Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, the 35-year-old warned Ngannou from incorporating MMA moves at any point of their fight this Saturday.
“This is a boxing fight,” said Fury. “And it’s actually a proper boxing, sanctioned fight. So if he starts doing anything stupid, he’ll get chucked out and disqualified. Game over.
“This is not a wrestling match, or an MMA fight, or a street fight,” continued Fury. “This is Queensbury rules. The greatest sport in history.”
Recently, fighters such as Nate Diaz and Dillon Danis have tried to incorporate some of their Brazilian jiu-jitsu in their bouts against Jake and Logan Paul. From what he has said in the lead up to the Fury fight, Ngannou is probably not going to follow suit, but there is a ‘creative’ way he can add a little MMA to his gameplan.
Team Ngannou may incorporate some MMA
Earlier this month, Coach Eric Nicksick sat down with Damon Martin of MMA Fighting to shed some light on how MMA angles could lead Francis Ngannou to a win against Tyson Fury.
“Here’s the thing: [Deontay] Wilder might look wild, he might not be as technical as some say, but I think just having a little bit of erratic motion—things that you may not be accustomed to and doesn’t look as clean—that’s right where I think clean boxers get hit,” said Nicksick. “We call them boogers in the gym. ‘This guy’s a booger.’
“It’s not a term of disrespect. It’s just like when you watch two guys who are very, very technical fighters, they just are working on this sharpness of technique back and forth. Whereas, if you put a technical fighter against a booger, he’s not used to that erratic motion and stuff coming from different angles and stuff coming from different stances. Doing all this stuff that we do within MMA.
“I think it’s going to be key for us—to not try to outbox Tyson Fury,” continued Nicksick. “I think if we get in a situation where it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to out-technique this guy,’ we’re going to be in trouble. It’s up to us to come up with creative ways on how to approach this.”
We have a few more days to see how creative Team Ngannou got with their gameplan.
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