Two-division world champion Paulie Malignaggi has detailed how he scored last weekend’s controversial Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou crossover bout, which has sparked claims of a ‘robbery’ against the Cameroonian debutant.
After suffering a shock knockdown in the third round, Fury took a split-decision win on the cards in what was a much closer fought battle than anticipated
After the announcement of the Brit’s win, many viewers took to social media to criticise the decision, believing that Ngannou had done enough to take it.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Malignaggi has given a clear reason as to why the judges got it correct, declaring that although Ngannou won his rounds well, he didn’t do enough to win the ‘quieter’ ones, of which there were more.
“At the end of the day, Ngannou wasn’t going to be a guy that was going to be able to stay consistent over the course of ten rounds.
By the end of the fight, Fury won the fight, it was a split-decision, was it more competitive than we thought? Yeah, absolutely. Does Ngannou deserve a lot of credit and does Tyson Fury deserve the criticism? Absolutely.”
“This was a class performance by Francis Ngannou regardless, but I don’t think that he won enough rounds and at the end of the day I had it about 96-93.
I don’t think he won more than three rounds, maybe four rounds if you are a little bit generous, but he won the bigger rounds and Fury won all the quiet rounds, but you still have to score the quiet rounds.”
The gruelling outing caused bruising to the face of ‘The Gypsy King’, meaning that the upcoming undisputed showdown with Oleksandr Usyk is expected to be pushed back until the early months of 2024.