EXCLUSIVE Q+A: British MMA legend Dan Hardy on why Francis Ngannou should have WON his fight with Tyson Fury, what’s next for the Predator and his thoughts on Fury vs Usyk
- Tyson Fury beat Francis Ngannou via split decision in Saudi Arabia on Saturday
- Ngannou was extremely impressive and many felt he deserved to win the fight
- LISTEN: Exclusive Tyson Fury interview on THE HOOK – our new boxing podcast
Francis Ngannou’s fight with Tyson Fury is the talk of the combat sports world at the moment after the former MMA star took the Gypsy King all the way in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.
It was the first time Ngannou had stepped into the boxing ring yet he showed no signs of being a novice, with Fury’s split decision win disputed by many.
In light of the blockbuster event, British MMA legend Dan Hardy joined Mail Sport’s new boxing podcast, The Hook, after being in attendance in Riyadh.
He discussed all things from the fight, what’s next for Ngannou, how Dana White will react after losing arguably his biggest star from UFC, along with his thoughts on the likely Fury-Oleksandr Usyk bout in the future.
Take a look at the highlights from his chat with ALEX McCARTHY below.
British MMA legend Dan Hardy joined Mail Sport’s new boxing podcast The Hook this week
Alex McCarthy: ‘Dan Hardy, thanks for joining us just a few days removed from the crossover fight that everybody is talking about. Francis Ngannou, PFL’s own, really took it to Tyson Fury and many felt that he should have got the victory – myself and yourself included. included. A few days removed, has there been anything to change your mind?’
Dan Hardy: ‘No, not really. I came back yesterday and watched it a couple of times, one with the volume on and muted it a couple of times so I could pay attention to what’s landing as opposed to the power of the shots.’
‘I still have it the same. I could maybe bring it around closer together to 95-94, but I’ve still got it 96-93 right now. Then again, maybe I’m not scoring it like a boxer! I’m scoring it like a fighter and I feel like, for the baddest man on the planet, Francis won the fight.
‘He landed more power punches, he was five power punches ahead, but he was outstruck overall by 12 strikes and I’m like “well, how much do I value those 12 strikes over five power punches from Ngannou and the knockdown as well?”
‘I personally feel like he did enough to get the victory. It was a close fight. It was closer watching it back than what I remembered because I think surprise was hitting me at the same time and I was like “oh my goodness, what is going on here?” But yeah, I still think he did enough to win.
‘You have to stop the champ to beat the champ. That’s always been the vibe in boxing and unfortunately I think that might have been the case on the night.’
AM: ‘You’re not wrong there. And that’s the thing. Many of us long-term MMA viewers knew all about the power and ability he could bring to the table, but he probably even surprised us, even those would would say he’s no joke. I would argue he went even beyond those expectations. What does that mean for what Francis can do moving forward and PFl, who have a litany of options to do with Francis and their promotion?’
DH: ‘Francis and the PFl, I think it’s important to mention that Francis was signed to the UFC and he worked with the PFL. There are far more options on the table for him than I could think of because he’s his own man. He’s going to make decisions for himself and have things that he wants to achieve, and now he’s realised his potential in boxing, I think we’ll see more of it.
‘It was an incredible performance, an incredible night, and it opens up his options to doing other things. We were tuning in for the “what if?” – what if he lands that big shot, because we know his power is unforgiving. But no one said: “what if he outboxes him? What if he wins rounds by being the better boxer in there?” That wasn’t a consideration, not even for me. I was expecting it to be three, maybe four rounds of interesting back and forth with Tyson, trying to wear him out, and then I thought Tyson would probably take control after Ngannou got tired.
‘But I think he did so much in the early rounds to put fear into Tyson Fury and to make him realise that he wasn’t going to bite on the feints and wing his way into range recklessly. I think even after he got tired, Tyson was holding back because he didn’t want to walk onto a massive shot.
‘And also, every time they clinched up, Tyson realised he wasn’t strong enough to deal with Ngannou. He’s a terrifying individual. You can see the thickness of his neck and back – you’re not going to push that guy around, and I think Tyson was surprised that he wasn’t able to have his way.’
Hardy felt Francis Ngannou deserved the win against Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia on Saturday
Fury ultimately won via a split decision victory, but the result was disputed by several people
AM: ‘Yeah, no doubt about that! You’re obviously a British MMA legend and you’ve worked with Dana White and the company a lot in UFC. What do you think Dana will be thinking now? Because he was downplaying this fight a lot when it was being talked about originally and now it’s on the lips of everybody and Francis Ngannou’s star power, I would argue, is higher than ever.’
DH: ‘I would agree. People are going to argue that Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, etc., but I feel right now that Francis Ngannou is the king of combat sports. He is the forefront combat sports athlete because he stepped out of UFC as the champion into free agency. He negotiated himself a great deal with the PFL as the Head of Africa and the pay-per-view star of the heavyweight division for the near future. And then stepped into boxing against the best heavyweight on the planet and, in my opinion, put a pretty good beating on him for the majority of the fight.
‘Francis’ stock has never been higher and I don’t think we could have anticipated coming out of the weekend with this opinion of Francis. We knew he was powerful. We knew he was dangerous, especially in the small gloves. But now we’re seeing that he’s evolved as an athlete, he’s very mature, and he fought like a good boxer. The sky is the limit for him, really.’
AM: ‘Do you think, in terms of UFC, that ship has sailed for all of them? Do you think Dana would look at this and go… because Dana has ended up with a little bit of egg on his face in the respect that he let Ngannou go. He could’ve co-promoted this like he did Mayweather and McGregor, no? The way it has worked out, Ngannou has proved not just a lot of boxing fans wrong, but you could argue that he’s proved Dana wrong too.’
DH: ‘He absolutely did prove Dana wrong. The thing is, Dana has got very good spin-doctors around him. He’s very good at twisting the narrative to suit him and the UFC, which is why he is a fantastic promoter. We see it in politics all the time – Dana’s just doing it in a sporting context.
‘If Ngannou had have stayed with the UFC and Jon Jones had moved into free agency and signed with the PFL, then it would have been Jon Jones who was afraid of Ngannou and doesn’t take risks and wants to make more money fighting lesser opponents etc. The spin goes in whichever way suits the UFC.
‘I know this from a first-hand perspective. When you leave the UFC, they have to devalue you as quickly as possible. They have to take your stock down as much as they can by creating a narrative that’s clearly not true. No one in the world should be able to say with a serious look on their face that Francis is scared. Come on, like he’s more than anybody could have considered.
‘That clip has come back to haunt Dana, hasn’t it? I’ve seen it’s been posted around the internet over and over again and that’s Dana’s job, right? His job is to promote the UFC and make it seem like it’s the best product on the planet. It’s very unfortunate for the UFC that it coincided with Jon Jones getting injured and then losing that heavyweight title fight, because I love Tom Aspinall and I feel like Sergei Pavlovich is a very interesting and tough test for him, but they don’t have the same star power that Jon Jones has got, and you’re looking at six to eight months out for Jon Jones.
‘Stipe [Miocic] is in his 40s. I don’t think we’ll see him fight again. I just feel like Stipe is going to expire before Jon Jones returns. And now Jon Jones is getting old as well – we’ve seen him fight once at heavyweight. You can’t claim he’s the best heavyweight on the planet because the champ retired, went over to boxing, and beat the heavyweight champ of boxing as well.
‘It just all fell apart from a UFC perspective and unfortunately, it’s a good lesson for the UFC to stop being so greedy and so controlling. They let McGregor go and fight Mayweather, but you remember Anderson Silva wants to box Roy Jones and they wouldn’t let him. They kept him in contract and they had a couple of really stinker performances form him because he was sulking. He was mad at the UFC. They brought this on themselves and it’s opened the door for every other UFC fighter to think to themselves: “you know what, if I’m courageous enough”.
‘I’ll tell you first-hand that there’s offers on the table from the PFL for people crossing over. we’re trying to create opportunities for any fighter on the planet who wants a bit of autonomy and wants to chase a large pay cheque based on a meritocracy, not on a popularity contest.’
Hardy also felt Ngannou had proved Dana White wrong after the UFC chief released him
Hardy was full of praise for Ngannou and his ‘incredible performance’ in his first boxing bout
AM: ‘Back to Saudi Arabia, there were legends everywhere. Talk me through being there. It feels like a real milestone event in the sense that Saudi put up a lot of money and a lot of invites. They make it the biggest event it could possibly be and it translated to that when I was watching it on the TV. “Now we’re throwing to mike Tyson, now we’re throwing to Conor.” Did it feel like the start of something?’
DH: ‘Yeah, it really did. It felt like the place that everybody wanted to be to witness something we’ve never witnessed before.
‘That’s what they were going for. They had a great undercard of heavyweight fights on show as well. They brought Jack McGann who’s an MMA Fighter who has crossed to boxing as well and he beat Roberto Duran Jr, which was a very impressive knockout.
‘And then you look at all the people that were there – Eminem walked in the royal family, you’ve got all those legendary boxers and legendary MMA fighters as well, Rampage and Chuck Liddell, Junior dos Santos, Conor McGregor, but for me the legendary boxers that I saw. On my flight back to Heathrow was Frank Bruno, Ricky Hatton, and Joe Calzaghe, just a couple of seats apart, all together.
‘You’re out there and looking around and you’re spotting people that you’ve been watching for years, like Miguel Cotto just leaning on the railings watching the weigh-ins. I turned to somebody and said: “Am I imagining things or is that Miguel Cotto over there?” It was incredible. If you get to shake Frank Bruno’s hand, he’s an imposing individual even at this age and Lennox Lewis, of course we had a bit of a back and forth on the TV but the last undisputed heavyweight champ, a legend of the game.
‘It was a very special event and definitely the start of things to come.’
AM: ‘What do you think about Tyson next going for Usyk? Obviously this is not the gateway that everybody thought it was going to be – it looks like they’re changing the date, it’s all a bit up in the air. What’s the deal with Tyson? Is he worried or do they want more time before facing him? Because he probably thought he could have this fight, stay sharp, and straight into it – and that’s changed.
DH: ‘Yeah, it has. Honestly, I think that one of the reasons why Tyson looked the way he did is because he was halfway through training camp. I think he’d planned this in his head like this was going to be an exhibition match or a sparring match with someone trying to take his head off, and he was going to handle him pretty comfortably, make a bunch of cash, and heavily promote the Usyk fight. I think that was the intention behind the Ngannou fight in hindsight.
‘As soon as the fight week started, and everybody started arriving in town and they started going “well”… from a fighter’s perspective, and the boxers were thinking this as well, you don’t accept your next opponent while you’re still dealing with the one in front of you. That is overlooking someone straightaway. There was a concern in the boxing world that he might be taking Ngannou too lightly.
‘I also got the feeling from Frank Warren as the fight week was progressing that he realised they’ve booked a date, December 23, if this goes wrong, if there’s a clash of heads, if there’s an elbow, if he gets caught with a clean punch, if he got knocked out, imagine.
‘Even though he won on split decision, if you look at the post-fight interview, that was not a man that was confident and happy with his performance. I feel like he got in there in the wrong kind of condition and made himself look bad, if I’m honest.
‘It’s unfortunate, because he’s Tyson Fury, the best heavyweight on the planet in my opinion, but he was unprepared for Ngannou. I think he would be a very different version for Usyk and I think we’ll get a better version of Tyson because of the fight he had with Ngannou. That will be a big wake-up call for him. But, ultimately he was cut, bruised, surprised, and dropped. It was not the promotional asset that they wanted for the Usyk fight and it’s most likely going to delay the fight now as well, which means that they’ve lost a bit of momentum for the promotional value of the event that we’ve just had.’
He also looked ahead to Fury-Usyk and insisted the Gypsy King was ‘unprepared for Ngannou’
Hardy was in Riyadh for the fight, with many global stars like Cristiano Ronaldo in attendance
AM: ‘What next for Francis?
DH: ‘I’m hopeful that we’re going to see the PFl gloves on his massive fists at some point in the very near future. The plan is for him to be fighting in the first half of next year, ideally in the first four months, and then we can see what he looks like back in MMA, we can see how his boxing skills transfer over to MMA, because you can see he has improved that range of his game, and then the challenge is trying to find someone that will step in there and fight him.
‘I’ve got a few good ideas and I know the matchmaking team are working hard on that as well. This keeps the door open for boxing as well. The WBC are going to rank him in their top ten. There are options above and below him in the rankings that make a lot of sense, exciting fights against the likes of Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, or even a little bit further down the rankings if you want someone like a Joe Joyce or a Derek Chisora, someone that would be a fun test and a good fight. I would give Ngannou a really good chance – especially against someone like Joe Joyce who stands quite tall and doesn’t move his head a great deal. You’ve got to have good defence against Ngannou and even someone with a great defence like Tyson Fury was still getting clipped and hurt.’
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