It has taken him a few weeks but Joe Calzaghe has settled on his opinion of who won the fight between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou.
The fight between the WBC and Lineal champion Fury and former UFC champion Ngannou took place on October 28 in Riyadh and sent unexpected shockwaves around the boxing world.
Many saw it as a money-making exercise for Fury who has a lifetime’s worth of boxing experience and was expected to brush aside the challenge of the novice Ngannou, but that’s not how it panned out.
The Cameroonian-Frenchman more than held his own and was, in some people’s eyes, unlucky to lose a split-points decision, though he did secure a knockdown in the third round and has since called for a rematch.
Fury now goes on to the historic undisputed fight with Oleksandr Usyk on February 17 with many people wondering if he is showing signs of being on the slide, or if that night in Riyadh was simply a blip.
Speaking to Jack ‘Tank’ Shore, Calzaghe expressed his shock at what happened that night.
“I think I was in shock. I was like what the f***k did we just watch?”
He then reasoned that Fury did the right thing in taking the huge money for the cross-over bout.
“A lot of the MMA fighters, like Rampage Jackson, were saying ‘I knew he was going to do this.’ At the end of the day, it’s a lot of money, good luck to those guys, who wouldn’t do that?’
I thought he [Fury] won the fight. It was closer than we thought but I think he won the fight. Fury outpointed him.”
