Whether the boxing world likes it or not, Tyson Fury is soon to fight MMA star Francis Ngannou and has recently reacted to footage of the Cameroonian-French professional mixed martial artist in training.
Many fight fans are disappointed with Fury for not stepping up to fight one of his fellow heavyweight professionals to either defend his WBC belt or go for undisputed status at WBO, WBA and IBF title holder Oleksandr Usyk.
His team say that they did try both of the above but that no opponents, including Usyk, were forthcoming.
Instead, the crossover bout in Riyadh in October will be Ngannou’s first-ever professional boxing match. He is being trained for the fight by none other than Mike Tyson, who has this week shared some film from behind the scenes of their camp.
Tyson can be seen showing Ngannou his famous side-to-side roll, there is a montage of him landing hooks to the body and plenty of heavy overhand rights.
With the video, Tyson wrote that he and his ‘brother’ Ngannou were “training to shock the world.” Fury responded saying the involvement of a heavyweight legend made little difference to the outcome.
“It’s good to see you training hard Francis Ngannou and you’re going to need to! It doesn’t matter if you’re being trained by the great Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali or Bruce Lee.
You’re going to get KO’d in the Kingdom.”
It’s good to see you training hard @francis_ngannou and you’re going to need to!
It doesn’t matter if you’re being trained by the great @MikeTyson, @MuhammadAli or @brucelee
You’re going to get KO’d in the Kingdom 👑🥊🇸🇦#Furyngannou#RiyadhSeasonhttps://t.co/5gau8n0B3s
— TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) August 22, 2023
For many, that will be the only satisfactory outcome if boxing and Fury are to come out of this with any credibility, though Ngannou says he has only grown more confident having seen Fury in the flesh for the first time recently.