Tyson Fury had previously predicted his fight with Francis Ngannou would be like Novak Djokovic on the court against a table tennis player.
In reality, it was competitive throughout. The MMA star dropped Fury in the third round, and seemed to confuse him by switch-hitting at points during the contest.
‘The Gypsy King’ kept his undefeated record via split decision, but it was far from a walk in the park.
Speaking to IFL TV two days on from the fight, Fury discussed the knockdown seen around the world.
“I just got a little bit greedy – hit him with a one-two down the pipe, clean, and I went to jump back in for another one-two and he got me on the way out.”
He went on to say that there was little dissecting to be done post-fight, refusing to give weight to theories that he hadn’t prepared or there were outside factors affecting his performance.
“There’s no who to blame. Blame me. There’s no blame the trainer, blame the manager, blame the cutman. Blame me if you’re gonna blame anybody. It was what it was. It’s the fight game, not tap dancing. You go in there and have a fight.”
“There is no excuses. You’re in there on the night. I did the best I could, that’s it … It was a tough fight, he was a good, game man.”
Fury does not see any way in which Ngannou could have won the fight on the cards.
He confirmed that he was moving ahead to the undisputed fight against Usyk – already signed – but said he would leave the date up to the promoters.
The Ukrainian has called on him to ‘honour the contract’ and fight on December 23, but that looks highly unlikely.