Earlier this month, the former UFC Heavyweight Champion dared to be great. He stepped into the boxing ring with former two time world champion Anthony Joshua. The event took place in Saudi Arabia on March 8th at the Kingdom Arena. Now the dust has settled, Ngannou voiced his excuses on MMA Hour detailing the main reason for his poor performance.
Francis Ngannou Gives Reason For Francis Ngannou KO
“Listen, I think we both fight at 3am,” Ngannou told The MMA Hour. “It’s not like I fought at 3 a.m. and he fought at like midnight or something. We both fought at 3am. What I think, something that’s happened is that they get me to the arena very early. Like my pickup time was 10.30pm to go to the arena. And then when we get to the arena, they tell us that we are scheduled around 1.45am. right?”
“They come to the locker around 1am and Joshua [was just arriving around 1]. I’m like, ‘OK, we are fighting at the same time, how come I have a pickup time?’ We received a schedule, an email, and then for some reason I was there at least one hour before. But for the fight, at least two hours beforehand. They do this kind of trick to get you tired. I was like cool, I was like, ‘Bro, it’s OK.’ I didn’t know how it was, how important that was, until the fight day that I have to get there two hours before.”
That being said, he walked the walk, unfortunately, straight into an absolute freight train in a vicious looking Anthony Joshua with Ben Davidson in his corner drawing out the violence within.
The Beginning of the End in Boxing?
“I take a punch, the first punch, I was awake, but I didn’t really feel it. I find myself down, I’m like, ‘Man, what’s going on?’ I’m being count [for getting knocked down], so, okay, let’s take your time to get back up.” Take my time, get back up, and things were still a little blurry.”
“I went to the corner, and we started to talk, and they were talking to me, I was listening. My memory and my vision and everything kept going. I never came back from the stool. I don’t remember from when I came back from the stool to go back to the second round…From there from the stool in between the round, I wasn’t there anymore.”
Joshua dominated the first round with his jab and eventually put the former UFC champion on the canvas, easy enough to say Ngannou was lucky to make it to the bell. Round two provided much more of the same and a bizarre decision to switch stances from Francis led the second knock down of the fight when AJ connected with on overhand right and a grazing left hook. To his credit or downfall, Francis rose to his feet before the count of 10. Dazed and confused the big man was met with a perfectly timed right hand with enough power to emaciate a small town. That was all she wrote for the man formerly known as ‘the baddest man on the planet’.
Will Francis Ngannou return to MMA or continue his journey in professional boxing? Financially incentivized, I’d suggest the latter.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
